Vincent Kearney and other journalists in Belfast. Photo by Kevin Cooper
PSNI surveillance of a prominent former BBC journalist involved creating a detailed “profile” of his professional and private life, including his home address, vehicle registrations, and names of his family members.
Submissions to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) allege that the extent of MI5 and PSNI surveillance of Vincent Kearney was “unprecedented”.
Court documents seen by the Guardian and The Detail allege that the surveillance campaign endured by Mr Kearney, who is now the northern editor for RTE, went far beyond what police and security services have previously acknowledged.
In September of last year, MI5 admitted to having illegally obtained communications data from the mobile phone of Mr Kearney on two occasions in 2006 and 2009.
In further disclosure provided the following month the intelligence agency revealed it had sought and obtained access to his communications data on multiple occasions and had requested to “open a file” on the reporter.
Mr Kearney will go before the tribunal this morning. The case is listed for several days, with part of the hearing likely to be closed to the public and media.
The IPT, which conducts most of its proceedings behind closed doors, is the only British court with the power to rule on covert surveillance operations by the intelligence agencies and police.
Mr Kearney’s lawyers will allege that both he and the BBC were subjected to a “long and consistent campaign of unlawful interference with their confidential journalistic material” that started in 2006 and went on as long as 2014.
The court will hear that the communications data obtained covered all of Mr Kearney’s telephone interactions over many months of his life and that the Metropolitan Police, Durham and the PSNI could see who he was interacting with, where, and when.
They also allege that the PSNI had created a detailed profile of Mr Kearney which included his date of birth, home and work addresses, his landline and mobile telephone numbers, vehicle registrations, his wife’s name, his mother-in-law’s name, as well as details about who was living with him at the relevant time. The profile also listed the number of articles published by Mr Kearney and the subject of those articles.
The creation of a profile, and tactics used by the PSNI and MI5, bear striking similarities to tactics used on journalists in the unfolding Labour Together scandal.
The submissions also note that the unlawful surveillance has had “a real and significant effect” on Mr Kearney’s life and that “the range and scale of this personal information has caused particular distress”.
The prosecution will contend that the surveillance has had a “measurable chilling effect” on Mr Kearney’s journalistic work, destroying some of his relationships with sources, and damaging the source protection credentials of his BBC colleagues who have suffered by association.
It will also be argued that the public authorities “routinely considered that obtaining of confidential journalistic communications data was a legitimate first port of call in their investigations into public interest journalism, rather than a step to be taken only when strictly necessary and justified, and after other less intrusive measures have been properly considered”.
Loughinisland
Mr Kearney , was a familiar face on BBC Northern Ireland between 2006 and 2019. He covered politics and security for the broadcaster, and worked on high-profile stories about the police.
Mr Kearney's case originally emerged as part of IPT proceedings involving former Detail journalist, Barry McCaffrey and the founder of The Detail, Trevor Birney who were arrested in 2018 and later acquitted after they had obtained confidential documents exposing collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the British state in a 1994 massacre of six Catholic civilians at the Heights Bar in Loughinisland, South Down.
They were spied upon illegally in an attempt to uncover their sources.
The PSNI was ordered to pay each £4,000 in damages in 2024 for unlawful intrusion.
Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey’s were able to identify Mr Kearney as a target for surveillance through disclosure related to them during their IPT case. Mr Kearney subsequently made his complaint to the IPT.
Lawyers for Mr Kearney state in submissions that all or almost all of the 10 applications made by the PSNI for communications data relating to journalists which sought to identify a journalistic source between 1st January 2011 and 31st March 2024 were related to Mr Kearney.
As well as damages, both Mr Kearney and the BBC will also seek an order for deletion of their journalistic material as well as clear declarations of illegality.
A report last year examined instances where the PSNI had unlawfully used covert powers to try and establish journalistic sources by accessing reporters' phone data.
Angus McCullough KC reported a number of issues of concern in his review of PSNI surveillance of journalists and lawyers, but said the practice was not "widespread or systemic.”
However the review did not examine cases that were before the IPT, like Mr Kearny’s, nor surveillance by the security services.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has called for a broader, independent investigation into the surveillance of journalists in Northern Ireland.
Kevin Cooper, vice Chair of Belfast & District NUJ Branch, said his thoughts are with Mr Kearney, a fellow branch member:
"NUJ members stand in solidarity with Vincent at this time. Journalism is not a crime and the British State, police and agencies have no right interfering with journalists going about their lawful business and doing their jobs on behalf of the public.”