Amanda Brown, the stepdaughter and a victim of the late TUV politician Davy Tweed, has accused party leader Jim Allister of hypocrisy in his comments on the recent conviction of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson. Ms Brown, who has spoken publicly about the abuse she suffered from Tweed from the age of eight, said Mr Allister's demands for DUP transparency over Donaldson contrast sharply with the tributes he paid to Tweed after his death in 2021.

Davy Tweed was a former Ireland and Ulster rugby international who served as a councillor in County Antrim for both the DUP and later the TUV. In 2012 he was convicted of multiple child sex abuse offences but the verdict was overturned in 2016 due to a flaw in the judge's direction to the jury. Tweed died in a motorcycle crash in October 2021, and Mr Allister subsequently described him as "larger than life" and offered his sympathy to the family. He later issued a statement acknowledging that his remarks had added to the distress of Tweed's victims.

Last month, Jeffrey Donaldson was convicted of 18 sex offences, including rape, against two women who were children when the abuse occurred. The case has prompted scrutiny of the DUP's internal knowledge of his conduct before his arrest in 2024. A BBC Spotlight investigation reported that some senior DUP figures had been made aware of another woman who raised concerns about Donaldson's behaviour.

Ms Brown said that politicians were turning the matter into a political football and questioned whether other elected members at Stormont were being protected from similar revelations. She described Mr Allister's intervention as displaying a lack of self-awareness, given his past comments about Tweed. The TUV leader had also suggested that awareness of Donaldson's offending may have been used as leverage during negotiations to restore power sharing in 2024, a claim the Northern Ireland Office called "deeply distasteful and absolute nonsense." The TUV did not respond to a request for comment.