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Iris is investigated again, this time for corruption rather than homophobia
Iris Robinson
Criminal investigation into Iris Robinson's financial dealings begins
Police in Northern Ireland have launched a criminal investigation into the financial dealings of homophobic former MP Iris Robinson.
Earlier this month, a BBC Spotlight documentary said that she had obtained £50,000, of which she was alleged to have taken £5000 for herself, from two property developers to finance her teenage lover's cafe, and that she failed to register the money at Stormont or Westminster.
The programme also alleged that she failed to declare her interest in the business even though she was a member of the council which awarded the lease of the cafe to 19-year-old Kirk McCambley, and that she lobbied on behalf of one of the property developers for a building scheme he was involved with in her constituency.
Robinson was expelled from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) earlier this month and subsequently resigned from the Northern Ireland assembly and as MP for Strangford.
Her husband, Northern Ireland's First Minister, Peter Robinson, was alleged in the programme to have known about the money and failed to alert the authorities, and last week he announced that he would stand down temporarily to clear his name.
Iris Robinson is said to be receiving "acute psychiatric care" in a Belfast hospital amid allegations of two extramarital affairs in addition to that with McCambley in 2008, one with his father, and the other, during the 1980s, with an unnamed fellow DUP politician which was said have been witnessed by security personnel.
In their statement today, the police said that the investigation would be conducted by the organised crime branch and implied that it would not be concerned with Robinson's extramarital affairs.
A spokesman said: "Police can confirm that a criminal investigation has been launched into allegations made in a BBC Spotlight programme broadcast on 7 January 2010.
"The investigation will seek to establish whether any criminal offence has been committed by Iris Robinson, MP, MLA and by any other person referred to in the programme.
"The police service is aware of the substantial public interest in this investigation. The police remit is to investigate potential criminality, nothing else. Police will be making no further comment on the investigation at this time."
This is not the first time Iris Robinson has been investigated by the police. In 2008, complaints were lodged following her comments on Radio Ulster's Stephen Nolan Show. Robinson had told listeners that homosexuality was "disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked and vile", an "abomination" that could be "cured" by therapy.
In the same month, she said in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph that she was "repulsed" by homosexuality, and regarded it as "comparable" to child sex abuse.
In March 2009, the Public Prosecution Service decided she had not committed an offence and the case was dropped.
