From Parliament to prison - the fall of Jeffrey Donaldson

Jeffrey Donaldson's life in politics: From DUP leader to convicted child sex abuser10 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleJayne McCormackPolitical correspondent, BBC News NIPA MediaSir Jeffrey Donaldson's political career is a tale of two Good Fridays – the first a pivotal turning point, the second a shocking end.It was in 1998, the day the peace deal - the Good Friday Agreement - was signed, bringing an end to decades of conflict in Northern Ireland, that he walked out of talks over the decision of his Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to support it.The dramatic move was uncharacteristic in a political life that usually avoided drama. But it did set him on a path that would see him go from being a thorn in the side of the UUP leadership, to becoming a party leader himself - but for the rival Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) after his defection to them in 2003.Fast forward 26 years later, Good Friday 2024, and DUP leader Donaldson is charged with sexual abuse. He resigns as leader and then has his membership suspended by the party.On Monday, Donaldson was found guilty of all 18 sex abuse charges he faced, including rape.A few short weeks before being arrested and charged, he had been in Washington DC for St Patrick's Day celebrations, lauded as the man of the moment after getting his party to return to power-sharing government at Stormont.It was deemed the pinnacle of his decades-long career.Just weeks later, that career lay in tatters.Donaldson's beginningsGetty ImagesUUP leader David Trimble and Jeffrey Donaldson had a tempestuous relationshipHis time in politics may have ended in the DUP, but it began in 1985 when he was elected for the UUP to represent the South Down constituency in the 1980s iteration of the Northern Ireland Assembly.Before his election, he had worked for South Down MP Enoch Powell who had joined the Ulster Unionists from the Conservatives in the 1970s.In 1997, when his boss James Molyneaux retired as the Lagan Valley MP,...