At 2.14pm in Newry Crown Court on Monday, Jeffrey Donaldson became a convicted sex offender.The former DUP leader showed no emotion as the foreman of the jury delivered a unanimous guilty verdict on all 18 sex offences charges Donaldson faced.These included the rape of a child.Until that moment, the former Lagan Valley MP was “Sir Jeffrey”.“Take Mr Donaldson down,” Judge Paul Ramsey ordered two custody sergeants flanking him in the dock. [ ‘The only person telling lies is you’ – the full story of Jeffrey Donaldson’s abuse trial ]Wearing his Christian fish pin on the lapel of his pristine navy suit, Donaldson (63) showed no remorse.He is now on the sex offenders’ register.Throughout the four-week trial he denied all offences; when he took the stand he repeatedly claimed “that didn’t happen”.He called his two victims liars.Known as Complainant A and Complainant B – they cannot be identified – both women gave harrowing evidence of the abuse Donaldson subjected them to as children between the mid-1980s and 2008.It is a spectacular fall from grace for the veteran MP.Just weeks before his arrest on March 2024, Donaldson was the toast of Washington at St Patrick Day celebrations after negotiating the deal that saw Stormont restored after a two-year collapse.He had led his party back into the party-sharing executive after it had walked out over Brexit.He was at the pinnacle of his political career.Front and centre of DUP briefings to media outside Hillsborough Castle throughout the fraught talks period, Donaldson was poised for a seat in the House of Lords.Yet a prison sentence is “inevitable” and “will be a lengthy one at that”, the judge told a hushed courtroom one on Monday afternoon.Outside the city-centre court, a crowd of more than 100 people gathered as news of the verdict broke.Children in school uniforms were among those watching the ex-MP being driven to custody in a prison van.His wife and co-accused, Eleanor Donaldson (60), was deemed unfit to stand trial on medical grounds. She was charged with four counts of aiding and abetting and one count of cruelty to children.She had faced a trial of the facts on mental health grounds, meaning the jury was asked to find out if she had committed the acts. She was not present during the proceedings and the jury found she had carried out the acts.During evidence given by Complainant A’s husband, the jury heard how he confronted Eleanor Donaldson about the abuse and challenged her about staying in the marriage.“If I was to leave Jeffrey, what would the neighbours think?” was her reply, the court heard. As Jeffrey Donaldson was remanded into custody, DUP leader Gavin Robinson led calls for his predecessor to be stripped of his knighthood.Donaldson had committed the “most heinous and despicable crimes”, Robinson said.Two years earlier, Robinson became emotional in a television interview following Donaldson’s arrest, describing it as a devastating revelation.Commentators likened it to a political earthquake.Security around the trial was unprecedented. A team of six PSNI officers was stationed outside courtroom one while police barriers were manned outside the building.Windows panes were blocked out on the door of the courtroom with sheets of white paper in what was a trial closed to the public.Apart for the occasional shaking of his head and writing notes in the dock, Donaldson remained impassive throughout.He even tried to make eye contact and smile at Complainant A’s husband – granted anonymity to protect his wife’s identity – when the man emerged weeping from the witness box.Days before his conviction, Donaldson told court staff to inform media he would deliver a speech to journalists if he was acquitted.He was born less than 30km away from Newry, in the fishing village of Kilkeel, Co Down, and his career in politics has spanned 40 years.Becoming “politically aware” at a young age, this was partly linked to the murder of his cousin, Samuel Donaldson, in 1970, one of the first policemen killed in the Troubles.The eldest of eight children, Jeffrey Donaldson joined the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Orange Order, and won his first election in 1985, becoming a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly aged 22.At the time he was personal assistant to the UUP leader, James Molyneaux; from 1983-85 he was election agent for the MP Enoch Powell.In 1997 he was elected as the MP for Lagan Valley.It was a seat he would hold for 27 years, making him Northern Ireland’s longest-serving sitting MP – though not representing the same party.It was during the year of his election he attended a meeting in a Co Antrim Christian Family Centre where he apologised to Complainant B – the woman who accused him of raping her as a primary school child – in the presence of two people who arranged the meeting, the trial heard.Donaldson lied about this encounter and said no allegation of sexual abuse was put to him. The prosecution accused him of “shutting down” this meeting during a period when his political career was taking off.A year later, a clash with the then UUP leader, David Trimble, during the 1998 Belfast Agreement negotiations led to a dramatic walkout by Donaldson from the peace talks.The rift never healed. His defection to the DUP six years later was a defining moment for political unionism and helped broaden the support base of the late Ian Paisley’s firebrand fundamentalist party.Although socially conservative (he was opposed to the legalisation of abortion and same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland), he was regarded as on the more moderate wing of the DUP. A Presbyterian, he has previously spoken of how the strength of his Christian belief has “helped to anchor me in the storms of politics”.Donaldson became leader of the DUP in June 2021 after the previous incumbent, Edwin Poots, resigned.As leader, Donaldson presided over the party’s campaign against the Northern Ireland protocol, which collapsed powersharing in 2022 and left Northern Ireland without a functioning government for two years.His political skill in manoeuvring his party back into government in January 2024 won him widespread regard.An impassioned address in the House of Commons at this time was regarded by many as the speech of his life.But within three months, he and his wife were arrested in their Dromore, Co Down, home and subsequently charged.He was knighted in Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday honours list in 2016, but there were mounting calls across the political spectrum on Monday for his knighthood to be revoked In court there will be a review hearing for him on September 11th before a pre-sentencing hearing on September 25th at Newry Crown Court.On Monday evening the former DUP leader was being processed in Maghaberry prison, Northern Ireland’s largest high security jail.Located close to Lisburn, the prison is in the heart of Donaldson’s former Lagan Valley constituency.