Police in Northern Ireland unlawfully used covert powers to attempt to uncover eight journalists’ sources, the author of a review has said.
The McCullough Review into surveillance practices in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) found that attempts were made on 21 occasions to identify reporters’ sources prior to 2015.
The review also raised “significant concerns” about the PSNI’s conducting trawls of its own communications systems records in “an untargeted wholesale attempt to identify unauthorised contact between PSNI personnel and journalists”.
Amnesty International has said the report “exposes a disturbing pattern of unlawful covert surveillance of journalists”.
However, the covert surveillance of journalists and lawyers by police was not “widespread or systemic”, the review concluded.
[ MI5 admits it ‘unlawfully’ obtained data from ex-BBC journalistOpens in new window ]
PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said he welcomed the review and was committed to ensuring the force “does better” in the future.
Angus McCullough KC was commissioned by the PSNI to examine the issue after a tribunal last year ruled that an undercover police operation to try to unmask the journalistic sources of two award-winning documentary makers was unlawful.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) quashed a decision made by former PSNI chief constable George Hamilton to approve a directed surveillance authorisation (DSA) in an investigation into the leaking of a confidential document that appeared in a documentary on a Troubles massacre made by Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey.
The review, published on Wednesday, investigated covert measures used by police between January 2011 and November 2024.
The barrister said he had been given full access to PSNI records, systems and personnel.
Mr McCullough said: “I have found no basis for concerns that PSNI surveillance of journalists or lawyers is widespread or systemic.”
He said: “Whilst there is scope for improvement in PSNI’s practices in various identified respects, and some specific incidents where there has been what I consider to be a failure to comply with the relevant legal provisions, I can find no basis for any suggestion that the powers available to PSNI are being routinely abused in relation to journalists, lawyers or others of special status as identified in the terms of reference.”
The review examined the practice of cross-checking journalists’ phone numbers against PSNI communication systems records, referred to as “washing through”.
It said this included the use of a list of more than 380 journalists’ contact numbers.
It said: “The scale of this practice, the duration over which it was carried out, and the apparent lack of any questioning as to the necessity or proportionality of a technique that seems to have been almost entirely ineffective in its aim of identifying inappropriate contact between PSNI officers and staff and journalists is troubling.
“I am relieved to find that the practice has been discontinued, having not been used since March 2023, and formally ended in May 2024.”
The review also examined PSNI applications for the use of communications data (CD), which it said does not involve access to the content of communications, but instead shows which numbers were in contact with each other, and for how long.
It said: “We have identified 24 applications which appear to have been made with the purpose of identifying a journalist’s source within the time-frame of the review.
“Of these applications, 21 applications were authorised, whereas three were not.
“The applications relate to nine investigations in total.”
The review also said that in the course of its investigations it had uncovered a “significant number” of digital files held by the PSNI which appeared to consist of data from devices seized from Mr McCaffrey and Mr Birney in 2018, and that their detention seemed to be a breach of orders made by the IPT.
It also said investigative reporter Donal MacIntyre, who is examining the circumstances surrounding the death and disappearance of Belfast schoolboy Noah Donohoe in 2020, had been the subject of a DSA.
However, it said this related to public posts on his X account and said there was no indication that private communication between the journalist and Noah’s mother had been accessed by police.
The review makes 16 recommendations, including commissioning a supplementary report and the PSNI bringing together all the units responsible for the authorisation process for all forms of covert surveillance.
Responding to the report, Mr Boutcher said: “The report does not identify any issues of misconduct by individual officers.
“What it does identify is individual authorisations where we as a police service could have done better, and I am committed to ensuring we do in the future.”
He added: “I am pleased to learn that the review has found no basis for concerns that PSNI surveillance of journalists or lawyers is widespread or systemic.
“The review rightfully highlights that we have to improve our processes, and we will.
“I am aware of commentary calling for a public inquiry into these matters, but this report shows that no such inquiry is necessary.”
