John Downing: We should be careful of schadenfreude over Jeffrey Donaldson’s exit – instability could yet spill across the Border

Emma Little-Pengelly and former leader of the DUP Jeffrey Donaldson outside Erskine House, in Belfast, in 2022. Photo: PA

John Downing

It seems a very unlikely casting these days – but in 1976 at Kilkeel High School, in Co Down, Jeffrey Donaldson played that winsome rogue the Artful Dodger in the school musical Oliver!.

The extraordinary circumstances of his resignation as Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader and his potential exit from politics are utterly without precedent in the public life of these islands. Despite the impatience to know fuller case details, we must wait out the judicial process revealing the circumstances surrounding historical allegations of sexual offences and also the other charges against his wife, Eleanor.