Jeffrey Donaldson has told the jury in his trial that he does not accept any allegations that he sexually abused two women while they were children and they are lying. He suggested to the jury that one of the women, Complainant B, may have been motivated by resentment as he was about to become an MP while she was dealing with drug problems at a Christian centre in Armoy. Under cross-examination on Thursday afternoon, prosecution barrister Rosemary Walsh put it to the former DUP leader that his defence was that the women were telling “lies”. “Yes,” Donaldson replied. Questioning him about the allegations made by Complainant B – in connection with whom Donaldson faces 10 charges, including the most serious, that of rape – the prosecution barrister asked him “why do you think she has told all these various serious lies?” “I wish I knew,” Donaldson replied, adding that he said the allegation had first been made around 1997, when he was “going forward to become an MP … it may be [Complainant B] saw that". “She sees I’m on the up and up as an aspiring member of parliament, maybe she resents that,” he said. He repeatedly rejected the suggestion by the prosecution barrister that he had sexually abused both women, saying “this did not happen”. On Thursday, the former DUP leader, wearing a blue suit and red tie, took the stand to give evidence in his own defence on the thirteenth day of his trial on charges of child sex offences at Newry Crown Court. Donaldson (63), with an address in Dromore, Co Down, is accused of 18 offences – one count of rape, four counts of gross indecency with or towards a child, and 13 counts of indecent assault on a female – on dates between 1985 and 2008. He denies the charges. His wife, Eleanor Donaldson (60), of the same address, is charged with five counts of aiding and abetting in connection with the charges faced by her husband – charges she denies. Eleanor Donaldson is not present in court as she has been ruled unfit to stand trial on the basis of medical evidence and will instead face a trial of the facts – which replaces a criminal trial in such circumstances. Asked by defence barrister Kieran Vaughan if he accepted any of the allegations of abuse, he replied “no”.Jeffrey Donaldson was then questioned by the defence barrister about the specific allegations made by the two complainants. In regard to a claim by Complainant B that he had been touching her breasts and Eleanor Donaldson walked in and saw what was going on, Jeffrey Donaldson said: “The idea I was standing in a room with a child with her clothes pulled up and feeling her chest and my wife walked in and saw that is just unbelievable. “She would have been very angry. She would have intervened immediately, because that is the nature of my wife.“I am absolutely clear there is no situation where that happened.”Donaldson was also asked about a letter of “apology” he had written to Complainant A in 2020. The complainant previously told the trial she received a letter from Jeffrey Donaldson in which he described himself as a “sinner” and regretted “all the hurt, pain and distress I have caused”.She said it “felt like an apology … he was trying to apologise for perhaps the abuse that had occurred, but he didn’t want to say that formally in writing”.Asked by Vaughan if the letter referred “in any way” to abuse, Donaldson replied: “Absolutely not.”He said he had “never done anything of that nature” and it was “not the reason this letter was written” and it was about “infidelity”. The jury heard Donaldson had a brief affair in 2008 with a “lady, a divorcee in London” and had moved out of his family home for a period of time in 2020 after a bugging device planted in his car revealed “flirtatious messages” between him and a constituent. Asked about a reference in the letter to his “sinful nature”, Donaldson replied: “We’re all sinners, Mr Vaughan. I am a sinner, every day … we seek God’s forgiveness.” Questioned about a meeting between Donaldson and Complainant B at the Christian Family Centre in Armoy, Co Antrim, in 1997, at which she claimed he apologised for the alleged abuse, Donaldson said he expressed that “if she felt uncomfortable or unhappy with our relationship, I was sorry for that”. He said “nothing” was put to him suggesting a claim of sexual abuse. “The word allegation wasn’t even mentioned at that meeting. There would have been no reason for it to be put to me.”Multiple claims made by Complainant A were also put to Donaldson by the defence barrister, which he rejected. In regard to an allegation he had kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth, he said: “Why would I kiss a child using my tongue? That’s just ridiculous. That just did not ever happen.” The trial continues.