Northern Ireland police and Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 were on Thursday ordered to pay compensation to a former BBC journalist Vincent Kearney for unlawfully obtaining his phone records.
Vincent Kearney, who now works for Irish broadcaster RTE, took legal action against the Police Service of Northern Ireland and MI5 based on disclosure from a separate case brought by two Belfast journalists who were put under surveillance.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal in London awarded Kearney compensation of £10,000 ($13,326) each from the PSNI and MI5 for what it described as disproportionate interferences with Kearney’s privacy rights and journalistic sources.
Kearney and the BBC, which was a claimant alongside Kearney, welcomed the ruling.
PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said in a statement that he accepted the ruling and apologised to Kearney. He added that “significant changes to practice and policy have already been made since these issues occurred”.
Boutcher previously commissioned an independent review which last year found that the PSNI used journalists’ phone numbers to check for information leaks by officers or staff, but did not carry out “widespread or systemic” improper surveillance.
