PSNI and Met police unlawfully spied on two journalists, tribunal finds
The Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Metropolitan police unlawfully spied on two investigative journalists, a tribunal has found.
The investigatory powers tribunal ruled that the PSNI must pay £4,000 each in damages to Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, who were arrested in 2018 after they produced No Stone Unturned, an
about a notorious massacre during the Troubles.The tribunal also quashed the PSNI’s direct surveillance authorisation targeting the journalists and their suspected source – the first time it is believed to have taken such action. It ruled that the Met unlawfully put McCaffrey under surveillance in 2012.
No Stone Unturned documented apparent collusion between the police and suspected murderers in the 1994
, in which six Catholic men were killed by loyalist paramilitaries.The subsequent arrest of the journalists was
by Northern Ireland’s top judge in 2019.
More details soon …