A former BBC journalist has been awarded £20,000 in damages after MI5 and the Police Service of Northern Ireland unlawfully obtained data from his mobile phone. The investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) on Thursday ordered the agencies to pay Vincent Kearney compensation for attempts to identify his sources while he was the BBC’s Northern Ireland home affairs correspondent.
Surveillance deemed disproportionate and unlawful
The IPT, a special court that investigates complaints against the UK’s spy agencies, ruled that the surveillance had been disproportionate and not in accordance with the law. Each agency was ordered to pay Kearney £10,000. Three judges—Lady Carmichael, Mr Justice Chamberlain, and Stephen Shaw KC—stated in the ruling: “The heightened protection provided to journalists is not for the benefit of the journalist personally, but for the public interest in the ability of his readers or audience to receive information from him.”
Seven separate operations between 2006 and 2018
Lawyers for Kearney and the BBC said there were seven separate police or MI5 operations that unlawfully obtained Kearney’s confidential communications data between 2006 and 2018. The PSNI ran four operations and created a “profile” of Kearney that included car registrations and the names of his wife and mother-in-law. The monitoring enabled the security agencies to see numbers in contact with Kearney and the time of calls and texts, though not their content. Other data revealed subscriber names and addresses of caller numbers. In one operation, the tribunal heard, the PSNI obtained information relating to 1,580 calls or texts.
Kearney: Victory for journalism
Kearney, now the northern editor of the Irish broadcaster RTÉ, said the ruling was a victory for journalism and an affirmation of the duty and legal rights of journalists to protect sources. “The fact that the court decided to award damages reflects the seriousness of the case,” he said. “The judges make clear that the impact of the illegal activities on me, and on the trust that potential sources can place in the confidentiality of their communications with me, was an important factor in their decision to award damages.”
BBC: Grave concern for journalistic freedoms
A BBC spokesperson said the case raised issues of grave concern not just to the corporation but wider society. They said: “Journalistic freedoms are a basic part of how democracies work. Their importance is recognised in law and matters to all of us. What happened in this instance was wrong and must never be repeated. It caused harm to a journalist, jeopardised trust and threatened the safeguards on which public-interest journalism depends and has a right to expect.”
Background: Case linked to McCaffrey and Birney surveillance
Kearney took legal action after information emerged in the case of journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney. In a landmark judgment in 2024, the IPT found the PSNI and the Metropolitan police had unlawfully carried out covert surveillance on the two Belfast-based journalists. The pair were wrongfully arrested in 2018 after they produced No Stone Unturned, a documentary that alleged collusion between police and loyalist paramilitaries in a Troubles massacre. Details disclosed in that case suggested that public bodies, including police forces, had spied on Kearney.
PSNI apology and policy changes
Jon Boutcher, the PSNI chief constable, accepted the ruling and apologised to Kearney. He said “significant changes to practice and policy” had taken place. Last year, an independent review commissioned by Boutcher found the PSNI used journalists’ phone numbers to check for information leaks by officers or staff but that improper surveillance was not “widespread or systemic”.
