A second woman who claims former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson abused her as a child has begun giving evidence at his trial about how he is alleged to have raped her.
She is the second complainant to make allegations against him.
Her anonymity is protected. She is known as Complainant B.
Her recorded police interview was played to the jury of five women and seven men in Newry Crown Court this morning.
During the course of the interview the witness described how Mr Donaldson had allegedly raped her.
She said she was of primary school age at the time.
The woman said she had pretended to be asleep and was anxious because there had been many previous incidents where Mr Donaldson had put his hands into her underwear.
On this occasion, she said the situation was different.
"I didn't know what was going to happen," she said. She felt "this is new, this is different".
She claimed that Mr Donaldson pulled her legs apart and used both his hands and his penis to abuse her.
"I just remember hearing his breathing. The breathing was laboured, panting, ugh!" she told police.
She told detectives she believed that if she kept pretending to be asleep "this is going to stop".
"I just wanted to scream out leave me alone, but I didn't."
She said it was an episode she remembered "vividly". She said she had been unable to tell anyone, except for an "imaginary friend".
At points in the recorded interview, which lasts for more than an hour, the witness becomes emotional.
Mr Donaldson has pleaded not guilty to 18 sexual offences charges, including one of rape.
Ten of the charges relate to alleged offending involving Complainant B, including the alleged rape and nine counts of indecent assault.
The offences are said to have happened between January 1985 and January 1991.
Mr Donaldson's wife, Eleanor Donaldson, has pleaded not guilty to five offences of aiding and abetting her husband’s alleged offending.
She will not be in court during the trial as she has been deemed unfit to face a criminal trial due to mental health issues.
The jury will instead be asked to determine whether she committed the offences, but she cannot be convicted or sent to prison.
Mr Donaldson is alleged to have apologised to one of the women he is accused of abusing during a meeting at a Christian centre in Co Antrim.
The claim was made during evidence given by Complainant B, the second of two women making abuse allegations against the former MP.
It took the form of a recorded police interview played to the jury.
Mr Donaldson denies all the charges he has been accused of.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The witness told the jury of five women and seven men that the apology happened during a meeting organised after she had disclosed the alleged abuse to someone connected with the Christian Family Centre in Armoy, Co Antrim.
Complainant B said she was 17 or 18 at the time of the meeting which was attended by Mr Donaldson and the couple who ran the centre, Davey and Linda Hoy.
The witness told police Mr Donaldson had apologised for "stuff" that had happened in the past.
The witness also said that she had received a text message from Linda Hoy in the summer of 2023 saying that Eleanor Donaldson wanted to meet to apologise.
"I couldn't believe what I was reading."
Complainant B confirmed to the court that she had provided a copy of that text message to the police.
She said she had also disclosed the abuse she had allegedly suffered to a pastor she met at the centre in Armoy.
The witness also was asked during her police interview about details of an incident in which she alleges she was indecently assaulted by Mr Donaldson.
She told police this had happened after the alleged rape when she was "taller".
She believed she was in first year at secondary school at the time.
She claimed Mr Donaldson had pulled up her top and bra and touched her breasts.
She claimed that Mrs Donaldson had witnessed this but had not intervened.
Mrs Donaldson has denied aiding and abetting her husband's alleged offending.
Complainant B said the alleged abuse was "not unexpected" and she had been assaulted "a lot".
On many occasions she said this took the form of Mr Donaldson allegedly putting his hands into her underwear.
"I couldn't figure out what this was," she told police.
The witness is now being cross examined by a barrister for Mr Donaldson.
Later, Kieran Vaughan KC, representing Mr Donaldson, questioned the clarity of the witness's recollection of the alleged abuse.
He put it to her that her memory of what she said happened was in fact "very poor" and he suggested that the abuse, as she described, had not happened.
She disagreed, saying that she lived with it "every day".
The witness said that while she could not remember all the details, she remembered the key events.
"The fact is that it did happen. Tell me why did it happen, what did I do, what did I wear, what did I say to make that OK?"
She said when it came to the allegation of rape, the detail of what she had experienced was "seared into my brain for the rest of my life".
Mr Vaughan asked why she had not spoken up about what she had experienced.
Mr Vaughan again put it to the witness that Mr Donaldson had not raped her and had not sexually assaulted her.
He again asked her if her account was true, why she had not spoken to someone.
"I was a kid that didn't know what to do, so therefore I did nothing," she said.
The case continues.
