MI5 to pay damages for illegal surveillance of journalist's phone

This is believed to be the first time that MI5 has been directed to pay compensation to a journalist

MI5 and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) have been ordered to pay £20,000 in damages to a journalist, after they illegally obtained his phone records.

Former BBC Journalist Vincent Kearney took a case at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in London.

It is believed to be the first time that MI5 has been directed to pay compensation to a journalist.

Kearney was the subject of secret operations aimed at discovering his confidential sources while he worked at the BBC in Belfast.

In a statement welcoming the judgement, Kearney said: "I am delighted the court has penalised those responsible for breaking the law.

"The fact it decided to award damages reflects the seriousness of the case.

"It is important that agencies charged with upholding the law know that they are not above the law and will be held to account."

The BBC, which brought the case alongside Kearney, said: "Today's findings are welcome, necessary and significant.

"We hope that their effect will be to protect journalists and their freedom to report and investigate stories into the future."

Kearney worked for BBC Northern Ireland for 18 years until 2019, when he joined RTÉ, where he is currently its northern editor.

There were multiple operations targeting him between 2006 and 2014, when he was a BBC correspondent covering policing and security issues.

Four of them were run by the PSNI, who also created a "profile" on him, which included car registrations and the names of his wife and mother-in-law.

MI5, the PSNI and, on its behalf, the Metropolitan Police, covertly obtained his mobile phone records, enabling them to see numbers in contact with him, and when.

They could also see the locations of where calls were made from.

The information did not include the content of those calls or any text messages.

The authorisations used were "disproportionate" and broke the law on privacy and the protection of confidential journalistic sources.

One operation alone involved trawling through information relating to 1,580 calls or texts he made and received.

Vincent Kearney was supported by BBC Northern Ireland Director Adam Smyth (second from right) when the case was heard in London in February

"One of the real tenets of journalism is that you promise sources to protect their identity," Kearney told BBC News NI.

"And here we had two organisations - the PSNI and MI5 - going about breaking the law, trying to identify sources I was using for some stories."

He said the surveilla