Iris Robinson found guilty of serious breach of MLA code of conduct

FIRST Minister Peter Robinson has been cleared of breaching his ministerial code by an Assembly investigation.

However, love cheat wife Iris Robinson was found to have committed a “serious breach” of the the MLAs code of conduct.

The report by the assembly’s Committee on Standards and Privileges report follows BBC Spotlight reporter Darragh McIntrye’s explosive programme four years ago.

Mrs Robinson broke assembly rules by failing to register three payments, including two from property developers to help her teenage lover Kirk McCamley.

The investigation found her husand did not breach the code.

Following today’s report, the DUP welcomed the findings and called on the BBC to “apologise for its malicious comments” made about Peter Robinson.

The 2010 BBC Spotlight programme revealed Iris Robinson’s financial and personal relationship with the then 19-year-old businessman and lover Kirk McCambley.

It revealed Mrs Robinson obtained £50,000 from two property developers in order to help Mr McCambley secure a tender for a south Belfast café, the Lock Keeper’s Inn.

One of the property developers had agreed to provide money on condition that Mr McCambley give £5,000 from the payment to Mrs Robinson to use for charitable purposes.

Iris Robinson’s former toy boy lover Kirk McCamley

he first minister temporarily stepped down as First Minister and Mrs Robinson stood down as an MP and MLA.

The Stormont Standards Commissioner, Douglas Bain, found that Mrs Robinson had committed only one breach of the code of conduct, but that it was a “serious” breach.

He found that Mrs Robinson had failed to register the two payments from the property developers, and payments totalling £5,000 by Mr McCambley to her, in the assembly’s register of members’ interests.

Mr Bain said: “Although there is no evidence that any of the three payments was in fact connected with her role as an MLA, they would assuredly have been perceived, by members of the public who became aware of them, as likely to influence her actions as an MLA.

“The fact that she failed to register them itself adds weight to the perception of their improper nature.

“In these circumstances she had a clear duty to register the payments. She failed in that duty.”

The commissioner cleared her of breaking the code of conduct in relation to several other claims made in the Spotlight programme.

Mr Bain also found that the First Minister Peter Robinson had not broken any rules.

He said: “I am satisfied that none of the allegations made in that programme against Mr Peter Robinson could, even if established as true, constitute a breach of… the code of conduct.”

MLAs on the Standards and Privileges Committee unanimously endorsed the commissioner’s findings.

UUP leader Mike Nesbitt, has described the publication of the report as “typical of the North Korean culture of tell-you-nothing”.

South Belfast Alliance MLA, Anna Lo said the report should have been published “years ago”.

She added: “Serious damage has been done to public confidence in the political institutions by the length of time taken to publish this report

“I’m concerned that too much was deleted from the commissioner’s report and what has been published does not do justice to his original report.”