Meet the man who challenged the criminalisation of homosexuality in NI- and won

You could be jailed in Belfast but not in Birmingham for homosexuality in the 1980s, and that did not sit well with Jeffrey Dudgeon.

A gay man who was politically educated, he took a case to the European Court of Human rights to challenge the discriminatory laws.

It took seven years, but the 1981 judgement from Strasbourg ruling led to the passing of the October 1982 law in Northern Ireland decriminalising ‘consenting, adult, male, private, homosexual behaviour’.

Today, Jeff still campaigns for equality, and he featured on the Queen’s New Year Honours list in 2012, when he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for ‘services to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community in Northern Ireland’.

❓So what was it like for the LGBT community at that time?

❓How did Jeff come to be embroiled in a legal case?

❓What were Jeff’s best memories of that long and difficult road to equality?

🎥Downtown Cool/FM News spoke to the prominent equal rights activist, writer and Ulster Unionist politician this LGBT History month. Watch the interview here. 👇