Claire Rutherford received Christmas cards from Jeffrey Donaldson when she was living in her family home in Hillsborough, Co Down, over 20 years ago.
If she found one today she’d burn it, she says.
The business consultant (45) is power-walking in white shorts down the affluent Main Street of Royal Hillsborough where Donaldson was a permanent fixture in the village’s artisan coffee shops and on doorsteps for decades as Lagan Valley MP.
Invited to every royal visit – Hillsborough Castle has long been an official residence for the British royal family and received royal status in 2021 – he was always in attendance.
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“He was constantly in the village,” says Rutherford.
Her grandfather was a well known Orange Order member but she was a moderate unionist.
“As the MP for the area, he tried to ingratiate himself with people like me. The Christmas cards were hand-signed from ‘Jeffrey and family’. It actually makes me sick.”
It is six weeks since the former DUP leader was found guilty of 18 sex abuse offences, including rape, committed against two women when they were children.
!['[Donaldson is] supposed to be a Christian, but he hasn’t repented. It’s very sad.' Photograph: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press](https://www.irishtimes.com/resizer/v2/XOVEJ2HLIVB2FM2E7HEC4I4GLI.JPG?auth=5968178d7b96ef4d7f97bcc682522ca31ceaf3e45f7346e8b7ad510d2e39311a&width=800&height=532)
Since Donaldson’s conviction, which he is appealing, there has been a drip-feed of stories about his secret double life.
Stripped of his knighthood by Britian’s king Charles two weeks ago, the disgraced politician’s conduct is at the centre of a review commissioned by the DUP into who knew what and when within the party and if members failed to act or turned a blind eye to his behaviour.
Visits to gay saunas and an alleged sexual assault on a woman in his Westminster office are among the string of claims that have emerged.
Reports of preferential treatment at Maghaberry prison outside Lisburn, where the 63-year-old is on remand awaiting a sentencing hearing in September, have sparked outrage.
Three other inquiries are under way about his actions in the workplace; one by the Northern Ireland Civil Service, one by the Stormont Assembly while another was ordered by his former party, the Ulster Unionist Party, within days of the DUP announcing its investigation.
There is “deep distaste” for Donaldson in the wake of the revelations, according to Rutherford.
“People thought he was a man of good moral compass and he certainly was not,” she says.
WhatsApp groups “exploded” among her friends after he lodged his appeal.
There is a feeling of intense embarrassment in the constituency
Anger at his co-accused and wife, Eleanor Donaldson, who was found to have aided and abetted his offences but will not go to prison after being prosecuted under a trial of the facts on mental health grounds, is also widespread.
It was suggested she was asked to leave a Co Down caravan park by holidaymakers earlier this month.
Eleanor Donaldson was regularly seen at the Cranfield caravan site, less than 7km from the fishing port town of Kilkeel, Co Down, where she and her husband grew up.
“He’s been found guilty, there’s more stuff coming out and yet there’s no sense of remorse. They both think they’re above the law – that’s the general feeling,” says Rutherford.
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There are some DUP voters living in rural communities outside Hillsborough who believed he would be acquitted, she adds.
“A friend of mine teaches in one of the town lands and says there is a wee bit more support for him in the countryside. I think they thought he was going to be found innocent. The fact he wasn’t shocked the hardliners,” she says.
Red, white and blue bunting flutters above Rutherford’s head in the historic Georgian village, long a bastion of unionist identity. It was one of the host venues for this year’s Twelfth celebrations.
But the expansion of new housing developments and growth of Hillsborough as a commuter base to Belfast has led to the area becoming more mixed, adds Rutherford.
“I have unionist friends and nationalist friends, they’re all disgusted by Jeffrey Donaldson.”
As Lagan Valley MP for 27 years, Donaldson went to the “opening of an envelope” in the constituency, according to a politician who did not wish to be named.
“Even though he did travel the world, he didn’t neglect Lagan Valley.
“In all the criticism of him, that has been never levelled – that he wasn’t attentive. So there is a feeling of intense embarrassment in the constituency. As for Eleanor, there is absolute disbelief.”
Eight kilometres away in the small market town of Dromore, two pensioners are overheard in a cafe loudly discussing the Christian fish pin the convicted paedophile wore on his lapel throughout his trial.
This is the town where Donaldson lived and went to church.
“He’s supposed to be a Christian, but he hasn’t repented. It’s very sad,” one of the pensioners says over her sourdough and eggs.
In the town square, Howard Bull is keen to express the hurt felt in the community following Donaldson’s conviction.
It is most acute within the Presbyterian faith, he says.
“The horrendous crime is one thing. For people round here – this is a very strong Protestant area – there is a sense of betrayal.
“One of our own has literally let down not only our religion, but he’s brought into disrepute the whole area, the church ... everything.
Claire Rutherford says she’d rather vote for a united Ireland than be led by the DUP
“He was somebody who people looked up to and would have taken the lead from. He was waving the flag for us.”
Bull attends a neighbouring Presbyterian church in Dromara – he has met Donaldson several times through a friend – and is critical of the “silence” among senior church figures and worshippers.
“I find it appalling, it’s almost as if everyone was in denial. No one wanted to admit that somebody from within our ranks was a rapist.
“It’s all been hushed. It’s all whispers. I think it’s because the scandal is bringing disgrace upon the church.
“They can’t deal with it when what people should be doing is discussing it.”
The Christian is furious about Donaldson appealing his conviction.
“He’s been found guilty and he’s got the affrontery and brass neck to stand there and still try to gaslight us into thinking that everyone else is wrong,” Bull says.
“It’s the arrogance of it. It’s the ‘I’m Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, how dare you accuse me’.”
On the rural Dublinhill road in Dromore, the Donaldson family home is perched on a corner overlooking the Mourne Mountains.
Sprawling detached houses are dotted along the quiet country road behind electric gates and rolling green fields.
“He’s a very private individual, we rarely saw him,” says a neighbour.
Why the fallout from Jeffrey Donaldson’s conviction keeps growing
“But everyone is very shocked. We did buy newspapers but I couldn’t bring myself to read them.”
Residents have been “very quiet” since last month’s conviction, says another neighbour who doesn’t want to be named.
“People up here don’t get together that often but we all know each other.
“A lot of the comments during the trial were around his professed Christian faith. That’s upset a lot of people round here as they’re church goers. I think they feel particularly betrayed.”
A Neighbourhood Watch WhatsApp group covers the road and Ballynaris. the next townland, but the fallout from the case has not been “discussed at all”.
“Yet it could have been an opportunity to talk about it. I think the last thing on it was a missing cat,” he adds.
The impact of Donaldson’s offending could have a devastating impact on DUP’s electoral fortunes at next May’s Assembly elections, according to a recent opinion poll.
Support has slumped to a five-year low while seven in 10 voters say they don’t believe the DUP review will establish the full truth about Donaldson’s time in the party, a LucidTalk poll published by the Belfast Telegraph found last week.
In Lisburn, a woman finishing her shift at a cafe close to his former MP constituency office is adamant she will vote for the rival Traditional Unionist Voice party next year.
“I’ve always voted DUP but never again. Jeffrey Donaldson is a big part of it. All you hear is people saying ‘what has pervy Jeffrey done now?’,” she says.
“Him appealing takes the biscuit.”
Back in Hillsborough, Rutherford echoes her view.
She says she’d rather vote for a united Ireland than be led by the DUP.
“That’s how much I dislike them and I wouldn’t be alone in this,” Rutherford adds.
“I haven’t voted for the DUP in over 20 years. I’m now very much a unionist with a small ‘u’. The way the DUP get on using the moral standing over the years when there’s been so many scandals – how dare they!
“Jeffrey Donaldson is the nail in the coffin.”
