'No Stone Unturned journalists under covert police operation'

'No Stone Unturned journalists under covert police operation'

6 March 2024

TWO journalists working on a documentary into the murder of six men at The Heights Bar in Loughinisland in 1994 were the subject of a police covert surveillance operation, a tribunal in London was told last week.

Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey were arrested over the suspected theft of files from the Police Ombudsman’s Office in 2018 as police tried to unmask one of their sources.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal is examining allegations that both men were subject to unlawful covert surveillance after Mr McCaffrey complained to the tribunal in 2019.

The journalists had been working on the No Stone Unturned documentary on the murder of six Catholic men who had been watching a World Cup match on television. 

The documentary named the man it believes carried out the killings and examined how the RUC handled the UVF murders of the men at the rural pub.

The tribunal was told that the arrest of the film makers was a “disruptive” tactic to see if the reporters would reach out to the source after their release from custody.

The PSNI later unreservedly apologised for how the journalists had been treated and agreed to pay £875,000 in damages to them and the film company behind the documentary.

The settlement came after a court ruled that the warrants used by police to search the journalists’ homes and Fine Point Films had been “inappropriate”.

Mr McCaffrey and Mr Birney are arguing that there were repeated and unjustified attempts by the PSNI and Durham Police to identify their sources. They say the extent of their conduct to unmask their confidential sources has been kept secret for many years.

As well as the unlawful search of their homes and offices, the documents disclosed also refer to a parallel “covert strategy”.

The men’s lawyer, Ben Jaffey KC, said the case was “a shambles” and that new material was disclosed just before the hearing last Wednesday of last week.

Mr Jaffey said he had seen a 78-page document relating to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) at the end of last week.

He said that last Wednesday morning he was shown an 86-page redacted document from the PSNI and Durham Police.

Mr Jaffey said a so-called Directed Surveillance Authorisation was granted to monitor a third party suspected of being the source of the leaked 

documents and appeared to have been in place for two weeks before it was cancelled.

The exact nature of the surveillance had been redacted, although the police have said it was not intrusive. 

Mr Jaffey said his clients did not accept that. He said the aim of the operation had been to unmask the journalists’ source.

It was also revealed that the MPS had obtained communication data from Barry McCaffrey’s phone in 2011 in relation to another investigation involving a leak of documents.

They had even written to the journalist asking him to identify his source. The request was refused.

Unknown to Mr McCaffrey, the MPS then obtained phone data and this was later given to the PSNI as part of its 2018 investigation.

The PSNI has accepted that even though it met the rules in place at the time, the 2013 access of Mr McCaffrey’s phone data was unlawful.

It said anti-corruption officers were investigating intelligence that a senior member of PSNI management had received payments of a corrupt nature.

The PSNI wanted to identify the employee who was passing sensitive information regarding an ongoing investigation to a journalist, with the organisation undertaking to material from its computer system that was obtained in 2013.

Following the court ruling in 2018, a request was made to Apple to preserve data in Mr Birney’s work account.

The PSNI said this was not a request to obtain emails, documents, photographs or data, but was to ensure that no material was deleted.

As no data was requested or provided to the PSNI, it argues there was no breach of the journalist’s rights.

Durham Police have admitted that this request was not recorded on its systems and was in breach of its policies, with the journalists arguing this was an attempt to circumvent legal protections for journalistic sources.

Outside the court, Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey expressed shock at the details that had emerged.

“I think it was stunning just to hear our counsel outlining just what has been going on since 2011,” Mr Birney remarked. “It is still somewhat shocking.”

Mr McCaffrey said: “It’s shocking, but there’s still much more that we need to know – we still need answers.”

He added: “Three different police forces in the UK have been trawling journalists, every journalist in the UK should tonight be asking themselves was I one as well. Was it me?

“And they should be going to the IPT and asking and finding out have they been victims like Trevor and myself.”