10:56

A gay rights activist who won a landmark case in Europe that legalised homosexuality in Northern Ireland has claimed that the Democratic Unionists are changing their views on LGBT issues.

Jeffrey Dudgeon won his case in 1982 at the European court of human rights, which overturned strict-anti homosexual laws in Northern Ireland.

Dudgeon, who is now an Ulster Unionist councillor at Belfast city hall, said he had noticed a change among new DUP politicians towards LGBT issues.

He also pointed out that the party’s leader, Arlene Foster, backed his campaign for the government to pardon gay men who were prosecuted for homosexual acts in Northern Ireland in the past.

Before a gay rights demonstration at city hall later today Dudgeon told the Guardian: