A UK court today found Northern Ireland police liable for authorizing the spying on two investigative journalists to identify one of their sources.
A court overturned a former Northern Ireland police chief's decision in 2018 to authorize surveillance of Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey to uncover the source of the leak of a classified document, revealed in a documentary the pair made as journalists.
The Police of Northern Ireland will have to pay each of them £4.000 (€4.800).
The Investigative Powers Tribunal (IPT), which hears cases of misuse of investigative powers, also found that the Police of Northern Ireland and the Metropolitan Police - London's police force - unlawfully placed Barry McCaffrey under surveillance in two separate operations, in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
In 2018, Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey were arrested after making a documentary about how pro-British paramilitary groups killed six Catholic men during the so-called "Troubles" period.
The documentary showed the police in collusion with the killers.
In 1994, the victims were watching a World Cup match between Ireland and Italy on television in a pub in the village of Loughinisland, Northern Ireland, when the killers entered and opened fire on them.
After the documentary, the homes and offices of the two journalists were subject to police searches, which the High Court in London subsequently deemed "inappropriate".
This led to an out-of-court settlement, after which Northern Ireland police agreed to pay £875.000 (more than €XNUMX million) in damages to the two journalists and the production company behind their documentary.
Journalists filed a complaint with the IPT in 2019, claiming that they were subject to illegal surveillance.
Northern Ireland police chief John Boucher said he "accepts" the court's findings that the police "did not sufficiently assess the existence of an overriding public interest justifying interference with journalistic sources before authorizing surveillance".
"I am committed to ensuring that the police in Northern Ireland use the powers they have been given lawfully, proportionately and responsibly," he said.
Fiona O'Brien, director of the British limit of the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, assessed the decision as a big one for press freedom, saying that it "can only be the tip of the iceberg".
"While we welcome the court's ruling, there is an urgent need to put in place strong and transparent safeguards to ensure that such abuses never happen again," she added.
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