The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) created a detailed “intelligence profile” of a former BBC journalist containing personal information about him and his family, a court heard today.
Vincent Kearney, now Northern Ireland editor of RTE, is seeking substantial damages following a sustained unlawful surveillance campaign against him to identify his confidential journalistic sources.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) heard today that there had been seven police or MI5 operations to unlawfully obtain the BBC’s and Kearney’s confidential communications data between 2006 and 2014.
The BBC and Kearney are bringing a legal challenge against the PSNI, Durham Constabulary, the Metropolitan Police Service and the UK government, alleging that police and the Security Service unlawfully spied on the phones of BBC journalists working in Northern Ireland.
The court heard that Kearney, who worked for the BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme, was subject to a “systematic and years-long pattern” to access his journalistic sources and map his professional activity between 2006 and 2014 by monitoring his phone communications data.
The PSNI created an “intelligence profile” of Kearney, which included his date of birth, home and work addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registration, and the names of his wife and mother-in-law and people living with him, the court heard.
Jude Bunting KC, representing Bunting and Kearney, told the court that the PSNI and MI5 had made multiple applications to obtain Kearney’s phone data to identify confidential sources who had supplied him with information in his role as a journalist.
He said the applications were made without considering the public interest in journalism and the right of journalists to protect their confidential sources, and were disproportionate in law.
The court heard that MI5 made at least four applications for phone data from Kearney and the BBC under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act in 2006, including Kearney’s phone calls and the details of people who had phoned him, in an attempt to identify his confidential sources.
In 2009, MI5 applied for data about Kearney’s incoming and outgoing communications. There was no consideration given to the proportionality of the application, and the interference with fundamental journalistic rights and the public interest in the role of the press. The clear focus was the expected “intelligence dividend”.
Bunting told the court that the PSNI made four applications for Kearney’s and the BBC’s phone data following the murder of PC Stephen Carroll in March 2009.
Kearney received a phone call from a person claiming responsibility for the murder by the Continuity IRA, which he reported to the PSNI and the assistant chief constable, but declined to give a witness statement.
Bunting told the court that the PSNI obtained Kearney’s communication data, but the application falsely claimed that Kearney had not reported the phone call directly to the PSNI.
“Not only is this information being sought for journalist material, but it is also being sought on a false basis,” he said.
MI5 had disclosed in September 2024 that it had unlawfully obtained the communications data from Kearney’s phone in 2006 and 2009 as part of investigations into people suspected of disclosing information relating to national security to Kearney.
The Security Service later confirmed that it had made “sequential applications” for Kearney’s phone data intended to identify his confidential journalistic sources.
Speaking before today’s hearing, Kearney said that unlawful state surveillance revealed by the IPT amounted to not just an attack on him, but an attack on public interest journalism.
“This process has confirmed that I was the target of a long and consistent campaign of unlawful interference with my confidential journalistic material by the PSNI, MI5 and other public authorities while working for BBC Northern Ireland,” he said.
“The extent of the admitted illegal monitoring of my communications data over a period of many years in an attempt to identify sources was shocking and stark, and it’s likely there was more than has been publicly conceded. This conceded illegality has had a real and significant impact and has had a chilling effect on my ability to carry out public interest journalism. Former colleagues in the BBC have also suffered damage to source relationships.”
