The Sentencing of Jeffrey Donaldson & What it tells us about Power

For as long as feminists have been writing and speaking about sexual violence, we have repeatedly framed it as an issue not connected to desire or uncontrolled urges so much as it is to power. While this framing is often misunderstood by people of good faith and bad, it is never more apparent than when a person with considerable and growing power uses that power to abuse and then to silence their own victims: a doubling of power dynamics.

When the story of Jeffrey and Eleanor Donaldson’s arrest and the nature of the charges against them broke, media coverage veered quickly into analysing the electoral and organisational impact that the trial would have on Donaldson’s former party. Self-appointed wits occasionally saw fit to make jocular political points about the situation. Frustrating as that can be to those of us who care about victims and survivors first, and offensive as it is to the dignity of the actual survivors in this case, it demonstrates something; the ghosts of power used to overcome and silence and of power about to dissipate were present in all the rooms where the podcasts and articles and talk shows and memes were made.

This week, Jeffrey Donaldson saw that power finally disintegrate, and it was the survivors of his crimes who made that happen. In his sentencing remarks, Judge Ramsey made clear that the court recognised the weight of the survivors’ words, the lasting impact of the offending itself and of the retraumatisation of the trial process noted specifically in sentencing remarks.

Is fifteen years in prison – considering the likelihood that that period will be reduced by half – appropriate for that level of harm? There is space and even a necessity for a legal analysis of the sentence, but this piece is not that. Certainly, the sentence is towards the upper end of what the guidelines allow, and that fact may open other questions about the extent to which the legal system is capable of or willing to understand the impact of sexual offences. This is true even in the face of gross and persistent offending, even when the victims were children at the time, even when the harm caused reverberates over the decades, even when the Judge’s remarks identify the sentencing process as the moment at which it “might now be appropriate to concentrate on [the victims]”.

Every part of the story is laced with power, and as powerful as the legal system is, it cannot write all the wrongs of where power has been used wrongfully. What it can do and should endeavour to do more often is to hand back to survivors some of the power that was wrongfully taken from them. They should know, as Judge Ramsey made clear, that their words were influential in his sentencing decision. They should know that, although they may never see remorse from their abuser, they have the gratitude of survivors everywhere.

Elaine Crory is a Feminist activist and Women’s Sector Lobbyist at WRDA

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