Police surveillance, 'criminals, thieves and terrorists'
Tales of a dramatic week at a tribunal investigating police surveillance of journalists
When journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey first made a complaint to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) several years ago, little did they know that “a dark mosaic of lies and illegality”, as Mr Birney put it, would be revealed.
The IPT, which looks at complaints against the UK’s intelligence services, is investigating how three police forces, the PSNI, Durham Constabulary and Metropolitan Police, sought to carry out surveillance against the journalists.
Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey made a complaint to the IPT after they were wrongly arrested in 2018 by officers from Durham Constabulary and the Police Service of Northern Ireland over their documentary, No Stone Unturned, into the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) killing of six men in Loughinisland, Co Down, in June 1994.
In several extraordinary days of evidence last week, the tribunal heard from Darren Ellis, a former officer with Durham, who led a probe into the alleged theft of sensitive Police Ombudsman documents.
That probe would lead to Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey’s arrests.
Some of Mr Ellis’s eye-catching claims, which have all been rejected, included:
accusing a solicitor of trying to buy a gun
alleging that a former senior PSNI officer had raised concerns about “perverse decision making” in court rulings because there was “disproportionate representation” of Catholics in Northern Ireland’s legal profession
claiming that a Labour MP had accepted money from the National Union of Journalists
Mr Ellis was also challenged over allegations he called the two journalists “terrorists” and “criminals and thieves”.
The case is important to The Detail, not least because it involves our editor, Mr Birney, and former senior journalist Mr McCaffrey, but also because police surveillance is putting investigative journalism under threat.
The tribunal is expected to give its findings before Christmas.
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Why Stormont needs to raise more money
How does Northern Ireland fund itself? The short answer is the north has never been self-sustaining and frequently has to hold out the begging bowl.
But as our columnist Denzil McDaniel writes, money from London and Dublin comes with continuing challenges.
As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, the common factor is that Dublin and London will be making decisions about spending money here and the electorate has little or no direct say in where the funds go.
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