Donaldson's first night in prison as downfall shakes NI politics

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Jeffrey Donaldson is spending his first night behind bars in Maghaberry Prison.

It is a place he knows well having visited it many times as the local MP.

But never did he think one day that cell door would close behind him and his liberty would be gone.

He has been told to expect a “lengthy sentence” for a string of child sex crimes including rape.

He will face up to 12 hours a day in the cell which he may have to share with another inmate.

According to prison sources he will be kept under tight observation through his first night.

Later on Tuesday he will have his breakfast on the landing with other prisoners on the wing.

That will be a sobering moment for Donaldson and he is likely to attract lots of attention from the other prisoners.

His mobile phone will have been taken and he will have little contact with the outside world.

He will be able to use the phones on the landings and will be entitled to one visit every four weeks.

His dramatic downfall has shaken Northern Ireland’s battle-hardened political landscape to its core.

It also triggered a political earthquake at the heart of the largest unionist party – the DUP, which it has still not fully recovered from.

The man known affectionately within unionist circles as just “Jeffrey” is now facing the humiliation of spending a lengthy period in prison and having his many honours stripped away with his reputation in tatters.

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Donaldson’s demise was laid bare in graphic detail over the course of his four-week trial.

Throughout some harrowing testimony he sat defiant with his arms folded.

According to those who know him best it was classic Donaldson, giving nothing away in the most pressurised of environments.

For them there was never any doubt that he would take the stand.

As a skilled politician with decades of experience of dealing with difficult questions he backed himself to convince the jury of his innocence.

The Donaldson downfall has also come at a cost to the DUP.

The former leader was suspended from the party after his arrest and then automatically expelled after two years passed in March in keeping with DUP rules.

During that time the party has steered clear of any public comment to allow “justice to take its course”.

But privately the DUP has felt betrayed and disillusioned by the actions of their former leader.

Some within the party blamed him for the loss of three Westminster seats two years ago.

According to senior DUP sources, his arrest and charge with child sex abuse offences dominated discussions on the doorsteps in the run up to the election.

“All they wanted to talk about was Jeffrey and the accusations of child sex abuse, there was just no escaping it,” said the source.

Pacemaker

Donaldson also appeared in court on the eve of polling day which further damaged the party’s election prospects, according to senior sources.

“It was clear a lot of DUP voters felt betrayed and just stayed at home on the day of the election,” they added.

But before his arrest Donaldson was credited with uniting the DUP after a period of bitter infighting when the party had three leaders in as many months.

Donaldson led the fight against the post-Brexit trading arrangements when unionists claimed the Northern Ireland protocol weakened Northern Ireland’s place in the UK.

He marched the party out of Stormont and only returned after he claimed to have removed the so called “Irish sea border” in the Safeguarding the Union deal with the then conservative government.

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We know now that as Donaldson was carefully negotiating that deal in January his two victims met face-to-face.

Two months later they went forward to the police and were interviewed for the first time.

At that very moment their abuser was preparing to travel to Washington where he was widely praised for leading his party back to Stormont and restoring the power sharing institutions.

Jeffrey Donaldson was at the peak of his powers – that was until police arrived at his door the following week and his world came crashing down.

His conviction has also led the TUV leader Jim Allister to question if he had been compromised before he agreed to the deal which other unionists claimed “sold out Northern Ireland”.

That is a question the current DUP leadership will be asked about again.

Whatever the fall out, Jeffrey Donaldson will now be remembered for his criminal and not his political past.