Image source, PA MediaImage caption, Jeffrey Donaldson was found guilty of 18 sex abuse charges earlier this month
A police detective suspected that Jeffrey Donaldson could be a secret child abuser a year before he was named to police, it has been claimed.
A BBC investigation was told that the detective and a child safeguarding expert identified Donaldson after speaking to the victim, known in the recent sex abuse trial as Complainant A.
A former senior police officer has told the BBC that such suspicions should have been passed to the chief constable.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it could not comment because legal proceedings are ongoing. Donaldson is awaiting sentence later this year.
In March 2023, a meeting took place at the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's headquarters between Complainant A and her partner, a detective chief inspector (DCI) and the church's head of safeguarding at the time, Dr Jacqui Montgomery-Devlin.
The couple wanted to understand the process for reporting abuse.
Complainant A did not name her abuser in that meeting, and did not name Donaldson to police until 2024.
But Montgomery-Devlin has told BBC NI's Spotlight programme that both she and the DCI believed the woman was describing Donaldson.
Image caption, Dr Jacqui Montgomery-Devlin was a Presbyterian church safeguarding officer
"She made it clear, as did he, that they were talking about a very high profile person here. And, if they were to make a complaint, the chances are that they would have to leave Northern Ireland," she said.
"When they had left the office, I don't know why, but I said to the detective chief Inspector: 'I think this is Jeffrey Donaldson'.
"There was nothing that the couple said to me apart from 'high profile' that made me think that.
"Later that same evening the Detective Chief Inspector contacted me and she had discovered and was able to confirm to me that it was Jeffrey Donaldson."
Former Ch Supt Norman Baxter said that suspicion alone should have triggered a series of actions which would quickly reach the top of the PSNI, and possibly the government.
Image caption, Norman Baxter believes the Chief Constable should have been made aware of the initial meeting
"That information would have become what we call intelligence that indicated that Jeffrey Donaldson was alleged to have committed sex abuse," he said.
"We have a high profile politician who, as a constituency MP, has access to vulnerable adults, who could have access to young people.
"It certainly should have made its way to the chief constable, and if the chief constable determined there would be a national security risk on the decapitation of the leadership of the DUP, then he would be duty-bound to inform the government."
Complainant A and Complainant B later named Donaldson as their abuser in a further meeting with police in March 2024.
Spotlight asked the DCI who attended the meeting and the PSNI if they had any intelligence about Donaldson before that and, if so, what had been done to risk assess Donaldson.
In a statement to Spotlight, the PSNI said: "The Police Service of Northern Ireland have conducted a thorough investigation into non-recent sexual abuse allegations.
"As legal proceedings are ongoing, we will not be making any comment."
The victims' accounts of sexual abuse, which took place between 1985 and 2008 when they were children, would convict Donaldson of 18 counts of sex abuse including one count of rape.
He's now in custody and will be sentenced later this year.
Donaldson's wife, Lady Eleanor Donaldson, faced a trial of the facts on mental health grounds, meaning the jury was asked to find out if she did the acts or did not do the acts of which she was accused.
They found that she had done the acts in relation to all five charges – including four counts of aiding and abetting her husband's offending.
Spotlight: Politician, Predator and Paedophile
Inside the double life of Jeffrey Donaldson: Political stardom hiding child sex abuse.
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