Tributes paid to DUP politician Christopher Stalford, who has died at 39

Christopher Stalford in Belfast last year. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Tributes from across Northern Ireland’s political divide have been paid to Christopher Stalford, a Democratic Unionist party member of the Northern Ireland assembly who has died suddenly at the age of 39.

The DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, said he had talked at length on Friday night with Stalford, whom he described as a friend and as someone who had been “born to be a public representative”.