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Just who is new justice minister Claire Sugden?

East Derry independent MLA and new justice minister Claire Sugden
East Derry independent MLA and new justice minister Claire Sugden East Derry independent MLA and new justice minister Claire Sugden

CLAIRE Sugden had worked as a parliamentary assistant to the late MLA David McClarty before she took up his assembly seat in 2014.

The 29-year-old had been nominated by Mr McClarty to fill his seat in the East Derry constituency following his death.

She managed Mr McClarty's campaign in 2011 when he stood as an independent and was co-opted onto Coleraine Borough Council two years later after he resigned his council seat.

The independent unionist, who retained her seat in the assembly election earlier this month, has been critical in the past of the Stormont executive.

She referred to the "jokers at the top" while speaking in the assembly in September last year amid the political crisis sparked by the murder of a former IRA man.

"This house of cards is falling Mr Speaker, and the only good that will come out of that is if the jokers at the top come crashing down too and do not get up again," she said.

Ms Sugden is from the seaside village of Castlerock in Co Derry and the youngest of four girls and a boy. She studied a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics and a masters degree in Irish politics.

Her father was a prison officer, and Ms Sugden has previously spoken in the assembly about the threat faced by prison officers and their families.

She got engaged to her 33-year-old fiance Andy Anderson earlier this year after he proposed on the London Eye, and the couple plan to marry in 2017.

Just days before she was tipped for the justice ministry, she told how one of her personal priorities was to start exercising ahead of her wedding day.