Alison Morris

And then he then became the leader of the DUP after what started as a sort of failed bid for leadership.

And we had Edwin Peates as leader for a few weeks.

I suppose his prominence on a sort of UK-wide level really came around during Brexit when the DUP were in a confidence and supply deal with the then Tory government.

And they were instrumental, I suppose, in that move from Theresa May as Prime Minister to Boris Johnson.

They were very closely linked.

So for a while, the DUP were big players in politics in a UK-wide level, especially during those Brexit negotiations.

And Geoffrey Donaldson would have been central to that.

I mean, we're talking about these allegations came around just weeks after he signed a deal that allowed the Winter Framework deal that meant that the Brexit negotiations basically came to an end with the EU and Northern Ireland.

So he was probably maybe at the height of his prominence when all this came around.

Yeah, definitely.

And I mean, he would have been at one stage, the DUP would have had an open door to Downing Street.

They were very, very close with Boris Johnson.

Geoffrey Donaldson at that stage would have been a regular appearances, I suppose, on the national media.

And, you know, he was someone who journalists here knew very well.

He was, you know, he was always very accommodating to the media.

But he was, as I say, I mean, the DUP had never been more relevant, I suppose, on a sort of global stage when you come to think about how those EU negotiations were going.

And as I say, when we think back to 2024, whenever these allegations first surfaced, he was, you know, in the headlines almost daily in relation to that Windsor Framework deal.

I remember it well because I think I slept for about two hours that night.

You know, news started coming through that Geoffrey Donaldson and his wife had been arrested quite late on in the evening and by the next day we knew that he had been arrested and charged and he was, there was actually a picture of him I think at the city airport.

His bail address was an address in England and obviously he had an address in London at that time because he was still a serving MP and he, and you know, there was a lot of