A specialist tribunal has ordered MI5 and the Police Service of Northern Ireland to pay £20,000 in damages to a journalist whose communications data was unlawfully obtained.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) awarded Vincent Kearney, a former BBC Northern Ireland home affairs correspondent and now RTÉ northern editor, £10,000 from each organisation. The judges found no reason to distinguish between the conduct of the security service and the police.

The tribunal said MI5’s applications for Mr Kearney’s data in 2006 failed to identify him as a journalist and did not explain how the intrusion served the public interest. The interferences were described as numerous and sustained over several years.

Mr Kearney said the ruling was a victory for journalism and showed that the agencies had acted outside the law. The tribunal had not previously awarded damages to a journalist against MI5. He said the aim was to expose the extent of the law breaking and its impact on his work.

PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher issued a sincere apology and said significant changes had been made to the authorisation process for communications data requests. He pointed to the McCullough Report, which identified more than 20 attempts by the force to identify journalists’ sources but concluded the surveillance was not systemic. The force was committed to learning from mistakes, he added.

The legal action followed disclosures linked to a case involving documentary makers Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney. During proceedings, the IPT heard that seven separate operations between 2006 and 2018 had unlawfully targeted Mr Kearney’s confidential data. The PSNI compiled a detailed profile of him, including personal details and an analysis of his published work.

A BBC spokesperson said the issues were of grave concern to the corporation and wider society. Journalistic freedoms were essential to democracy, and what happened must never be repeated. The Metropolitan Police also made concessions during the case.