Journalism, Politics and British Justice

Speakers:    

• Journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney; and
• Ben Jaffey KC, Blackstone Chambers

Chair:       

Amanda Harcourt, UCL IBIL

About this event

Searching for the truth behind the 1994 loyalist paramilitary massacre in Loughinisland, County Down, two journalists fought to protect their sources.  This became an encounter with the British justice system that only ended 30 years’ later at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in London.  Shortly before Christmas 2024, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled against the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Metropolitan Police.

The UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law is delighted to welcome Barry McCaffrey, Trevor Birney and their one of their barristers, Ben Jaffey KC.  Barry and Trevor will share their professional and personal experience of this long battle.  Ben Jaffey will speak to the legal tools that were employed by the two journalists at each step in their challenge; tools which are, in law and in theory, available to any journalist seeking to secure the privacy and confidentiality of their sources when reporting news or investigating matters of public interest.  

Background:   
Loughinisland is a small County Down village; a close-knit community of a little over 200.  Until one Saturday evening, when the Ireland football team was playing Italy in Giants Stadium, New Jersey in their opening game of World Cup finals, Loughinisland was a village largely untouched by “The Troubles”.  But on June 18th 1994, a little after halftime with Ireland winning one-nil, two men burst through the doors of the tiny Heights Bar and indiscriminately opened fire with assault rifles upon the occupants.  Six innocent Catholic men died and five more were wounded.   The bereaved families were assured by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) that they would “leave no stone unturned” to identify the killers. 

Sharing the frustration of the bereaved families, an experienced and respected Northern Ireland journalist, Barry McCaffrey and his colleague, documentary film maker Trevor Birney, began digging.  The result was the 2017 award-winning film No Stone Unturned from Oscar-nominated director, Alex Gibney. 

The film confirmed there had been collusion between the RUC and the loyalist terrorists behind the killings.  It named the terrorist suspects and included evidence from an internal Police Ombudsman report.  Unbeknownst to the bereaved families, the police and, it was alleged, Special Branch, had known the identities of the killers and the driver of the getaway car by the morning after the massacre.  And, it subsequently appeared that one of the three may have been an active police informer.  Crucially, prior to the film’s release the film makers informed the RUC and the three men allegedly guilty of the crime that their identities would be made public in the film.

But within a year Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney had been arrested, their homes and offices searched and their computers seized.  In what became clear was a tactic to identify the journalists’ sources, the two men were arrested on suspicion of breaches of the Official Secrets Act, the theft of confidential documents and, allegations were made that they had compromised the safety of the perpetrators of the terrorist killings.

Using the legal tools designed to protect journalists from surveillance and interference with investigations, McCaffrey and Birney fought back.

Even now, thirty years after the massacre, nobody has been charged for the events of that night in 1994.

About the speakers

Barry McCaffrey
Barry McCaffrey was a senior reporter on The Detail, an investigative news and analysis website dedicated to in-depth reporting on issues of vital public interest.  The Detail's core areas of investigation include health, education, politics, justice & crime, government accountability, and the legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland.  Mccaffrey’s training began in 1996 at the Down Democrat, McCaffrey moved in 1998 to the North Belfast News and in 2001 to Irish News where he remained for 10 years.  He has written for the Sunday Times, Ireland on Sunday, Sunday Business Post and Irish Voice.  In 2013 McCaffrey was awarded the overall award in the Attorney General’s prestigious Justice Media Award by the Law Society of Ireland for his investigation of the use of solitary confinement in Northern Ireland prisons.  In the same year Barry was named CIPR Digital Journalist of the Year.
 

Trevor Birney
Trevor Birney is an Emmy-nominated producer, award-winning director, and the founder of Fine Point Films. In 2023, he produced the multi-award winning film, Kneecap which has been shortlishted for two Academy awards. He also produced the Cyndi Lauper documentary, “Let The Canary Sing” which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Previously, he produced the Critics’ Choice Award-winning and Sundance hit film The Go-Go’s directed by Alison Ellwood. He directed the RTÉ television documentary series, “Quinn Country” which aired in 2022. His slate also includes Emmy-nominated film No Stone Unturned directed by Oscar-winner Alex Gibney, Sundance World Competition film Gaza, Emmy-nominated Elián for CNN Films, Netflix Originals Documentary Mercury 13, George Best: All By Himself for ESPN and BBC, Wave Goodbye To Dinosaurs in collaboration with Abigail Disney’s Fork Films, Bobby Sands: 66 Days and HBO’s Emmy-winning Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God directed by Alex Gibney. In 2020, he directed The Dakota Entrapment Tapes which premiered at Hot Docs and was released on Sundance Now.  He is also the founder of the television production company Below The Radar and the multi-award-winning investigative journalism website The Detail.
 

Ben Jaffey KC
Ben Jaffey KC took silk in 2017 and practices at Blackstone Chambers. He enjoys a stellar reputation for his command of the intersection of administrative and public law with financial services. He is a first choice for representation before a range of financial regulatory bodies and tribunals including the FCA, PRA and Upper Tribunal. Alongside working on disputes arising in the wholesale energy and forex markets, he has also been engaged in cases concerning accusations of financial misreporting.  He has a diverse client base comprising individuals, companies, central and local government, regulators and public interest groups. Held in high esteem for his expertise in areas such as detention, data retention and the environment, Jaffey frequently appears before the Supreme Court. He has appeared in many of the important Investigatory Powers Tribunal and surveillance cases of the last decade, including Big Brother Watch v UK and Liberty’s challenge to the lawfulness of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.  He acted for McCaffrey and Birney in the matter arising from the film, No Stone Unturned.
 

Schedule:

17:30 Registration opens
18:00 Event begins
19:15 Q&A
19:30 Event ends

Tickets

This event is free of charge and has both in-person and online tickets available.
 

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