Lady Eleanor Donaldson was declared unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds on Wednesday after a judge heard medical evidence at Newry Crown Court. Judge Paul Ramsey said she could not be tried because of serious ill-health.
The ruling means the 60-year-old will face a trial of facts instead of a standard criminal trial. That process is used when a defendant cannot be tried because of serious ill-health, and a jury does not decide guilt but instead considers whether the alleged offences were committed.
Dr Christine Kennedy examined Lady Donaldson and wrote two reports, telling the court that she was “in no fit state to instruct her lawyers, follow proceedings or give evidence.” Lady Donaldson denies five charges relating to aiding and abetting her husband’s alleged offending.
The decision lands in the middle of a case already carrying heavy legal and political weight. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 18 alleged offences, including one count of rape and allegations of indecent assault and gross indecency said to have taken place between 1985 and 2008. The charges involve two alleged victims, and together the couple deny 23 sex abuse charges.
Prosecutors have proposed that Sir Jeffrey Donaldson face a standard trial opening next Tuesday while his wife faces the trial of facts at the same time. That would allow the court to deal with both defendants simultaneously, even though the legal paths for each are now different.
The split is significant because Lady Donaldson, the wife of the former Democratic Unionist Party leader, cannot be found guilty through the trial of facts process. The jury would instead decide whether the alleged conduct happened, a narrower question that reflects the court’s finding that she is too ill to stand trial in the usual way.
What happens next is now clear enough: prosecutors want the two proceedings to begin next Tuesday, with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson contesting the charges in a standard trial and Lady Donaldson facing the court’s determination of the facts. The judge’s ruling has removed one uncertainty, but it has also sharpened the central issue in the case — whether the allegations can be proved against either defendant, and in what form the court will hear them.
