Sources: now will police get the message?
Northern Ireland editor and NUJ hero Suzanne Breen has won a stunning victory for press freedom and the union’s long-standing policy of protecting confidential sources. By standing firm on principle she defeated an attempt by police to get hold of her material.
NORTHERN IRELAND police have been knocked back in their latest attempt to threaten a journalist into surrendering confidential information, putting her life at risk.
Suzanne Breen, Belfast editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, defied the threat of imprisonment and refused to hand over her material following publication of stories relating to the Real IRA.
She said: “I decided that, regardless of any court order, I couldn’t cooperate even if non-compliance meant up to five years in jail.”
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) wanted to order her to hand over all information, including phone records, that she had on the murders of two British soldiers in Antrim in March. Suzanne Breen had received the Real IRA’s claim of responsibility for shooting sappers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey at the gates of Massereene Army Base in Antrim.
The PSNI applied for a court order under the Terrorism Act but after two hearings at Belfast Recorder’s court the application was refused.
The Recorder, Judge Thomas Burgess, ruled on June 18 that requiring Suzanne Breen to hand over the material would be a breach of her right to life under the Human Rights Act.
The judge accepted her evidence that the Real IRA would target her if she complied — even under compulsion from the court. He described the Real IRA as a “ruthless and murderous group of people” who would have no hesitation in killing her. And her right to life, he said, “outweighed the public interest in the investigation of crime. I have concluded, taking into account all of the factors, that the application for the production order should be refused.”
The police produced no evidence to counter her claim that her life would be in danger.
Suzanne Breen had also claimed that the practice of journalism would be undermined if she were compelled to hand over material. She said protection of sources was “the lynchpin of investigative journalism” and that it was the police’s job to investigate crime, not the media’s.
After the hearing she celebrated her victory outside the court, surrounded by journalist colleagues. “It was a landmark decision,” she said. “Burgess recognised that not only would handing over the material place my life in danger from the Real IRA, but that the very concept of journalistic confidentiality regarding sources was protected in law.”
Leading journalists gave evidence to the court in support of her stand. They included Alex Thomson of Channel 4 News — who himself had resisted an order to supply the Saville Tribunal into the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry in 1972 with the identity of Parachute Regiment soldiers who had given anonymous interviews to a documentary he had made about the shootings — as well as Liam Clarke of the Sunday Times in Belfast, media commentator Roy Greenslade and John Ware of the BBC’s Panorama programme.
Suzanne Breen’s case was the latest of a series in Ireland in which journalists have successfully resisted orders to hand over confidential material. The most notable was that of Ed Moloney, himself a former Northern Ireland editor of the Sunday Tribune, who in 1999 saw off a similar police attempt to get hold of his material on a loyalist paramilitary killing.
Suzanne Breen had the full support of the union, and of her editor in Dublin, Noirin Hegarty, who said: “We stand firm in upholding journalistic ethics and the protection of sources, and we will continue to do so to the highest level.”
Hundreds of politicians, human rights campaigners, celebrities and journalists gave their backing to Suzanne Breen. More than 5,000 people signed a petition, with names published in the Sunday Tribune, including investigative journalist John Pilger, actor Stephen Rea, singer Christy Moore, and Booker prize-winning writer Roddy Doyle.
Dozens of journalists went to NUJ protest rallies outside the Belfast court at each of the hearings; another was held outside the Northern Ireland Office in London.
The NUJ hailed the court’s decision as “a landmark victory for journalism and for civil liberties”. Irish Secretary Seamus Dooley said: “The judge recognised the central importance of the protection of journalistic sources and also accepted that a journalist who hands over confidential material could put their life at risk.
“No journalist should face the prospect of a prison sentence for doing their job in the public interest.”
Union President James Doherty said: “This is a victory not only for Suzanne, but for all journalists and the right to do our job free from fear or coercion. The Fourth Estate should never become a lapdog for a police state.”