Northern Ireland

Video: Journalists question ‘decision-making at top of PSNI’ as London tribunal over covert surveillance continues

Journalists Trevor Birney (left) and Barry McCaffrey (right) outside the Royal Courts of Justice, in London, for an Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) hearing over claims they were secretly monitored by police. Picture date: Tuesday May 7, 2024. Picture by Victoria Jones/PA Wire
Journalists Trevor Birney (left) and Barry McCaffrey (right) outside the Royal Courts of Justice, in London, for an Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) hearing over claims they were secretly monitored by police. Picture date: Tuesday May 7, 2024. Picture by Victoria Jones/PA Wire (Victoria Jones/Victoria Jones/PA Wire)

Journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey have arrived at court in London for a hearing of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) into allegations state authorities were involved in unlawful covert surveillance of their work.

In 2018, Mr McCaffrey and Mr Birney were controversially arrested as part of a PSNI investigation into the alleged leaking of a confidential document that appeared in a documentary they made on the 1994 Loughinisland UVF massacre.

Ahead of today’s hearing, Mr McCaffrey told reporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice: “What is blatantly clear now from previous evidence is they don’t use the proper procedures, the police feel that journalists are criminals and we’re here to show that journalism isn’t the crime.”

He went on: “We need to know why this is happening, if there’s justification, that’s fine, tell us what the justification is ... this is 2024, it’s not 1984, it’s not George Orwell.

“We need to get to the truth.”

Mr Birney said: “It really calls into question the decision-making at the top of the PSNI that they felt it absolutely appropriate to go after the journalists rather than the perpetrators.”