The Government has described claims that it may have used knowledge of Jeffrey Donaldson’s sex offending as “leverage” in a deal to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland in 2024 as “deeply distasteful and absolute nonsense”.
TUV leader Jim Allister had raised questions over whether the former DUP leader, who was convicted this week for a string of sex offences, had been “compromised to the detriment of unionism”.
A jury at Newry Crown Court unanimously found the ex-MP guilty on Monday of 18 offences against two women when they were children, including one count of rape.
Donaldson has been told he faces a “lengthy” prison sentence when he is sentenced later in the year.
In 2022 Donaldson, then the DUP leader, collapsed the Stormont powersharing institutions in protest over the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol.
Two years later he struck a deal with the then UK government to restore the institutions.
Mr Allister, the North Antrim MP, and a fierce critic of the deal which brought back the powersharing Executive and Assembly, issued a statement following the conviction in which he referred to a “chilling and troubling issue”.
Mr Allister said: “To me it is inconceivable that the government was unaware of his proclivities and the idea of such being used as leverage is far from fanciful.
“His about turn from ‘unalterable opposition’ to the protocol to protocol facilitator was telling.
“From sharing platforms with me and others in robust opposition, he somersaulted to lying salesmanship of the phoney ‘Safeguarding the Union’ document.
“Who could forget his brazen lies that the Irish Sea border was gone?
“How did this come about?”
A UK Government spokesperson responded: “Our thoughts are first and foremost with the victims of Jeffrey Donaldson who have shown immense courage in coming forward and giving evidence.
“Mr Allister’s allegations are deeply distasteful and absolute nonsense.”
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