Alison Morris

talk, I remember, in the newsroom that morning because

We weren't sure whether we could even name him or not, which was ludicrous because it was all over social media and everyone knew that it was Geoffrey Donaldson was the person referred to in the police statement saying that a man and woman had been arrested.

But obviously there's legal constraints when you're reporting allegations of this serious nature, especially allegations of alleged sexual abuse.

And it was only the DUP early that morning, about mid-morning, released a statement saying that Geoffrey Donaldson had stood down as leader.

And that statement, I suppose, then, was...

we came around to the fact that he was named later on that day.

It was Good Friday.

It was coming off to Easter.

And I can't think of a bigger story that I had reported on in years.

You know, the fact that this was the leader of unionism, the leader of the DUP, a man who has been so prominent in politics throughout his entire life.

You know, someone who I knew very well and had interviewed numerous times as a politician.

And here we had this sort of, like, I suppose, bombshell revelations.

And then there's the fact that the Northern Ireland court system works quite slowly.

You know, there's a backlog of

in our courts.

And it has taken then, obviously, two years since those allegations to get to the point where we are now, where we're two weeks into this trial.

So they have lingered around.

And, you know, electorally, it was obviously very problematic for the DUP because they had to replace this man who was so synonymous with the Laggan Valley constituency.

He was so well known in that area.

And