I haven’t heard the details of the charges on which Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was today convicted, but even the outline of them sounds pretty ghastly. No one has said the two children involved were the children of Jeffrey and his wife, but it’s difficult to read the situation any other way.
If that assumption/allegation is true, this is a disaster of epic proportions. Not only will Jeffrey have to serve, as the judge promised , “a lengthy sentence”, he will do it knowing that he has visited disaster and life-long pain on his family.
I find it impossible to understand that anyone would do these things to their own children – especially a man like Jeffrey who literally wore his Christianity on his lapel. In fact, I’d say that a man who would do such things to any child, let alone to his own children, must be suffering from some form of mental illness.
If that is the case, then he shouldn’t be going to prison, he should be going to a mental institution. I haven’t heard anyone suggest this may be the case, yet a moment’s thought about the horror of destroying the lives your own family must drive you to that conclusion.
If Jeffrey wasn’t assessed by a psychiatrist, and if that psychiatrist didn’t conclude that the former DUP leader was mentally disturbed, then justice has not been served by having this wretched man spend probably the rest of his life in a prison.
And as we know, those convicted of sex crimes are at constant risk of violence from fellow -prisoners.
You’d have to have a heart of flint not to be moved not just by the pain visited on the victims but the fate of the convicted man as well.
Jude, I normally concur with a lot of your thinking but on this issue, no.
For me the crimes for which Donaldson has been convicted are the greatest betrayal – the worst. To then try and bury you head in the sand and put your victims through another ordeal of reliving and reviewing what happened is the calculated action of someone who thinks they are above the law.
Whatever comes his way, as he pays the price for his disgusting crimes, so be it. Maybe if he had thought about consequences beforehand, it might not have happened.
I have no sympathy for him.
all to often the mental health card is played he’s just evil he played it for his wife one doctor said yes the other said no a third one should have been asked she got away he didn’t he could have avoided this if he wasn’t so arrogant