Police are still spying on reporters, say pair who were illegally targeted

Two investigative journalists who were unlawfully spied on by police say they are in "no doubt" reporters continue to be targeted in the UK.

- Haroon Siddique

In a landmark judgment, the investigatory powers tribunal found last week that the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Metropolitan police unlawfully carried out covert surveillance on Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey.

The case stemmed from the Belfast pair's 2018 wrongful arrest, condemned by Northern Ireland's top judge, after they produced No Stone Unturned, an award-winning documentary alleging collusion between police and loyalist paramilitaries in a notorious Troubles massacre.

The tribunal found that, on the same day as the pair were arrested, an unlawful direct surveillance authorisation targeting them was made and that McCaffrey had also been unlawfully spied on by the Met on behalf of the PSNI in 2012 and by the PSNI itself in 2013.

But they were not the only journalists being monitored. Disclosures to the tribunal revealed that phone records of Vincent Kearney (now at RTÉ) and other BBC journalists who worked on the Northern Irish Spotlight programme had been accessed.