The jury in the trial of the former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson for child sex offences is set to resume deliberations on Monday. The panel of seven men and five women did not return with a verdict and was sent home by judge Paul Ramsey on Friday afternoon. The judge said they had been “deliberating for a long time”, almost seven hours since Thursday, and it “felt appropriate to stop for the day”.In his direction to the jury on Thursday morning, the judge had said in regard to several of the incidents in dispute – including the alleged rape of one of the complainants when she was a primary schoolchild – there was a “head-on collision” between the positions of the Jeffrey and Eleanor Donaldson and the complainants.It was a matter for the jury, he said, to decide whether they believed the evidence given by the complainants who claimed they were abused by Jeffrey Donaldson, or Donaldson’s evidence that it “did not happen”.The former DUP leader’s trial began at Newry Crown Court four weeks ago.Donaldson (63), with an address in Dromore, Co Down, faces 18 charges – 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.The charges relate to two women who claim Jeffrey Donaldson abused them when they were children from the ages of about seven or eight to 12 or 13.His wife Eleanor (60), of the same address, was charged with four counts of aiding and abetting and one count of cruelty to children.She did not face a criminal trial as she was ruled medically unfit, and the jury must instead decide whether she committed the acts alleged on the basis of trial of the facts.