‘Rivers of blood’ firebrand said to have abused victims at hotels on north coast.

Posted by Jim on June 25, 2026

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Jeffrey Donaldson’s mentor Enoch Powell long rumoured to have preyed on young boys in NI.

‘Rivers of blood’ firebrand said to have abused victims at hotels on north coast.

Enoch Powell and Jeffrey Donaldson in 1987

Andrew Madden

City Reporter

25 Jun 2026 6:10 AM

Enoch Powell, Jeffrey Donaldson’s political mentor, was accused of paedophilia dating back to the mid-1980s.

Donaldson served as Powell’s constituency agent during his time as South Down MP, and the former DUP leader’s offending, beginning in 1985, overlaps with the period in which he was close to Powell.

When speaking about his background in the dock during his trial, Donaldson never mentioned Powell by name, referring to him only as “the local MP” he once worked for.

Powell is known for his infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, which ended his mainstream political career, being sacked from then Conservative leader Edward Heath’s shadow cabinet the following day.

He dramatically left the Conservative Party five days before the snap general election in February 1974, mainly over policy on the European Economic Community.

The contest resulted in a hung parliament, and another general election was called for October.

The UUP then recruited Powell to stand in the South Down constituency. It was a move that suited both sides, with the UUP securing one of Great Britain’s most popular politicians, and Powell getting a seat.

His joining of the UUP was not that unusual. He was a frequent visitor to Northern Ireland and strongly supported maintaining the Union, fearing the knock-on effect Northern Ireland leaving could have in Scotland and Wales.

After Powell was elected, the then 20-year-old Donaldson, at that point relatively unknown, became his constituency agent, spearheading his successful bids to retain the seat in 1983 and 1986.

As a constituency agent, he was effectively Powell’s right-hand man, and as his election agent, he ran his campaigns.

During this time, rumours began circulating that Powell had a fondness for young boys, meeting them in hotels on the north coast.

Fleet Street is said to have investigated the claims, which did not become public knowledge in Powell’s lifetime.

Powell and Donaldson’s friendship grew during their time together, with the future DUP leader joining the MP and his wife, Pam, on picnics in the Mournes.

“Jeffrey Donaldson learnt a lot from working with, and often just listening to, the South Down MP,” Donaldson’s authorised biography, Not By Might: A Journey in Faith and Politics, reads.

“When exposed to the breadth and depth of Enoch Powell’s intelligence and knowledge, he felt strangely privileged. It was like being a young student who had been accorded a prized place at the feet of an eminent philosopher or theologian.”

Powell arranged a place for Donaldson, who left school with few qualifications, at Trinity College, Cambridge. However, he turned down the offer, meeting his future wife, Eleanor, soon after and taking up a role as personal assistant to UUP leader Jim Molyneaux.

While he began working for Molyneaux in 1985, he remained close to Powell, serving as his election agent for his successful 1986 South Down by-election. Powell lost his seat in the general election the following year.

Decades later, after his death, rumours that he had a sexual interest in young boys re-emerged.

It was reported in March 2015 that, the previous year, the Church of England’s lead on safeguarding, Bishop of Durham Paul Butler, had handed Powell’s name to police over allegations of child sexual abuse.

At the time, Scotland Yard was investigating claims of a VIP paedophile ring with links to Westminster allegedly operating out of Elm Guest House and Grafton Close children’s home in London.

Dominic Walker, the former Bishop of Monmouth, also passed Powell’s name to police, along with that of Leo Abse, the late Welsh MP.

The Rt Rev Walker had heard the allegations regarding Powell when he was counselling abuse victims in the 1980s.

A Church of England spokesman said in March 2015: “The name of Enoch Powell was passed to Operation Fernbridge by one of our safeguarding teams on the instruction of Bishop Paul Butler.”

Scotland Yard said at the time: “We do not identify individuals that are subject of investigation.”

Operation Fernbridge, launched in 2013, saw charges filed against two men, including Catholic priest Fr Anthony McSweeney, who was found guilty of abusing a boy and jailed for three years in March 2015.

The other man charged, John Stingemore, was found dead at his home before he could stand trial.

Following McSweeney’s sentencing, Operation Fernbridge was closed, and investigations into Elm Guest House were taken over by detectives working on a probe named Operation Athabasca.

By the time Operation Athabasca closed, “no person of prominence” had been conclusively identified as having abused a child at the property, according to a senior Met Police officer involved in the investigation.

One child, however, was removed from Elm Guest House and found to have been abused, and the owners of the property were found guilty of running a brothel.

When the allegations regarding Powell, who died in 1998, emerged in the press, his biographer, Simon Heffer, denounced them as “appalling slurs”.

He said the “outrageous allegation” about an “enormously distinguished public figure who cannot defend himself” would cause the “deepest distress to his family and friends”.

Fewer than three years later, further allegations about Powell would be made by Richard Kerr, a former resident of both Williamson House and the Kincora Boys’ Home, Belfast institutions where dozens of children were sexually abused in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mr Kerr said that in 1973 or 74, when he was 12 or 13, he was taken from Williamson House, which was closed in 1983 and demolished, to be abused by Powell at a guest house near Portrush, and again at a hotel in Belfast city centre in 1977.

With these allegations dating to the 1970s, they appear to be separate from those referred to police by the Right Rev Butler, which related to the mid-1980s.

Mr Kerr is currently involved in legal action against the Northern Ireland Office, the Department of Health, the PSNI and the Home Office over the abuse he suffered at Williamson House and Kincora.

Donaldson stayed close friends with Powell, who was guest of honour at his wedding to Eleanor Donaldson in 1987, until his death, visiting him at his home in London a month before he passed away.

When Powell died in February 1998, Donaldson offered his condolences.

“Obviously, on a personal level, it is very sad news, and our nation will mourn the loss of a man who was a true statesman and held in very high regard,” he said.

“I think, as people look over his remarkable political career, they will come to regard him as a man with great insight and intellect.

“It would be true to say that many of his predictions of the 1960s and 1970s have been proven true in the 1980s and 1990s.”

This would not be the last time Donaldson spoke about his mentor.

When he gave evidence during his trial for a litany of child sex offences, for which he was found guilty, Donaldson spoke of his background, of leaving school at 16 and working as an apprentice electrical engineer, before joining the Young Unionists at 18.

Not referring to Powell by name, perhaps knowing the rumours that surrounded him, Donaldson said he then “worked for my local MP for three years”.