MY father used to say that you could think you knew a person well, yet you would rarely know them well enough to know what was going on when their front door was closed behind them and they were in their safe zone.

I first met Jeffrey Donaldson in September 1985, when he was the UUP candidate in the South Down by-election to replace an assembly member who had died a few weeks earlier.

He was just 22 and struck me as affable, articulate and talented. It’s the way he struck most people.

Over the years he became a hugely influential figure within the UUP and then the DUP.

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Yes, he clearly annoyed UUP members when he undermined David Trimble and then jumped ship to the DUP.

He later annoyed DUP members, along with the TUV and elements of loyalism and the Orange Order, when he persuaded his party to accept the Safeguarding the Union document (which I described as very flimsy) as the basis for rebooting the Assembly in 2024.

But no-one, and I really do mean no-one, ever suggested to me that there was a dark side to him. A Mr Hyde, if you like: “The personification of pure id – impulsive, animalistic, and entirely consumed by selfish passions. He feels no guilt for his actions and took pleasure in causing harm."

I never saw the Mr Hyde side in any of my........

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