18 Jun 2009 | Uncategorized
Suzanne Breen has won her right to withhold material from a police investigation in Northern Ireland after the court agreed with her that such action would be put her in the terrorist firing line.
Breen argued that not only was the hand over of such information a breach of journalistic confidentiality but it would also put her life in danger.
Today in Belfast’s Laganside Court the recorder, Mr Tom Burgess, concluded that the risk to her was “not just real and immediate” but also “continuing”.
Her legal team described his ruling as a landmark judgement in terms of press freedom in particular the protection of sources.
Joe Rice, a Belfast lawyer who has defended several reporters under similar pressure in Northern Ireland to disclose sources by the state and a number of public inquiries, said the significance of the judgment could not be underestimated.
Journalists operating in Northern Ireland are relieved that Suzanne Breen has won her case. The decision has major implications for other reporters here.
This not only includes correspondents who are under pressure from the state, principally the PSNI, but also from the range of public inquiries into a number of past crimes in the Troubles.
For instance, at least three correspondents have been subjected to the attempts by Blood Sunday Inquiry and the Billy Wright Inquiry to get them to hand over confidential material. When they refused, the legal teams acting for the inquiries have gone to court to force the journalists’ hand. At best, the reporters reluctant to reveal sources and confidential material to the inquiries face contempt of court charges.
The outcome of today’s case may have implications for them as well. And in addition for Ian Paisley Junior, the son of the Rev Ian Paisley, who is facing sanctions over his determination to protect sources. Paisley Junior will not disclose who leaked him details about the security regime inside the Maze prison at the time when Billy Wright, a loyalist killer, was murdered in the H-Blocks in December 1997. The DUP Assembly member, it should be remembered, is also trying to uphold the right of source protection and his case is as vital as the Breen case in terms of defending the free flow of information in a democracy. He goes to court on Monday week to find if his refusal to hand over sources and information to the Billy Wright Inquiry will either land him in jail or result in him paying a heavy fine.
Read the full judgment here
18 Jun 2009 | Index Index, minipost
Belfast journalist, Suzanne Breen of the Sunday Tribune does not have to hand over her notes to the police, the High Court has ruled. A judge ruled that to give up her sources and material would endanger her life. Read more here
11 Jun 2009 | Uncategorized
Suzanne Breen gave evidence in the witness box today (11 June) and defended her decision to refuse to co-operate with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) investigation into the murder of two British soldiers in Northern Ireland.
Breen told Belfast High Court that the Real IRA was “more than capable” of killing her, her 14-year-old daughter and her partner if she passed on relevant information to the PSNI. The police want Breen to hand over interview notes and other material to detectives in charge of the inquiry into the Real IRA murder of the squaddies in March this year.
Her defence goes to the heart of press freedom in the UK. Breen is defiant principally because of the need to protect journalistic sources, albeit sources involved or connected with terrorism.
The wider media community are so concerned about the implications of the PSNI winning this case that several high profile journalists were in court today. They included John Ware of the BBC’s Panorama, Channel 4 News’ Chief Correspondent Alex Thompson and media commentator Roy Greenslade.
Breen came under sustained questioning by the Crown, who wanted to know if she had taken any extra security precautions at her home, had changed her routine or had spoken to the police about security measures. The line of questioning became Kafkaesque because, as Breen pointed out repeatedly, she will only be under a Real IRA death threat if she retreats from her current position and hands over her material. Which is something the Sunday Tribune correspondent insists she will not do.
Apart from giving a robust defence for the need for journalists to protect their sources, Breen stuck to her line that co-operation with the PSNI would put her and her family in the firing line. She said she was not prepared “to place my life at risk and that of my child and my partner”.
When asked if she was prepared to go into a witness protection-style scheme, Breen said: “Northern Ireland is a small place and republican organisations can find out information about anyone.”
Breen added that by publicly taking the case against her in the High Court “I believe the PSNI has actually increased the potential threat to me”.
Henry McDonald is Ireland correspondent for the Guardian and Observer. His most recent book is Gunsmoke And Mirrors: How Sinn Féin Dressed Up Defeat As Victory
27 May 2009 | Uncategorized
The National Union of Journalists held a meeting on Tuesday in support of journalist Suzanne Breen. Following Breen’s reports in the Sunday Tribune on the Real IRA, she is facing the prospect of a court order under the Terrorism Act 2000 to disclose information, with serious implications for press freedom and for her own personal safety. Suzanne Breen told the NUJ about the background to her case. Jo Glanville’s speech in support of Breen is posted below. Other speakers included Sir Geoffrey Bindman, Bill Goodwin and Mark Stephens.
Any journalist who reports on terrorism faces a double challenge: the job of reporting in the first place on a highly sensitive subject, where gaining the trust of your sources is paramount. And then the challenge of dealing with the police once you’ve broadcast or published your story when they come after you for your sources, your notes and your research material.
What we’ve seen at Index on Censorship over the past year is an apparent increase in the police’s pursuit for journalists’ material in counter-terrorism investigations. It appears to have become routine for the police to go on fishing expeditions: broadcasters and newspapers can expect to receive vague, poorly defined production orders that ask for anything and everything in the name of counter terrorism — interviews, contacts, details of meetings.
It’s quite clear that journalists are being asked to act as an arm of the state. The potential chilling effect on investigative journalism is profound, the pressure this puts journalists under is extreme and the danger this can place them in — as in the case of Suzanne Breen — is unacceptable. It’s also unnecessary.
What we see happen in most cases is that production orders of this kind end up in months and months of horse trading in the courts — while media lawyers fight to limit the scope of the production orders. Time and money is wasted — and it is a hugely stressful experience for the journalists involved.
In fact, too frequently the police instinct for going after journalists and their sources degenerates into a farce as they put in production orders for material that is already in the public domain. One wonders if they think journalists are some kind of alternative library service. In Suzanne Breen’s case they even had the opportunity of arresting a member of the Real IRA — thanks to the Sunday Tribune story — but chose not to take it up. Instead, they went after Suzanne Breen. Putting her life potentially at risk — not to mention her livelihood as a journalist.
The continuing lack of recognition for the cardinal tenet of the protection of sources remains a grave concern, despite the Bill Goodwin case, where the European Court established the cardinal importance of the protection of sources as the bedrock of press freedom. And even despite the case of Suzanne Breen’s predecessor at the Sunday Tribune, Ed Moloney, where again there was an attempt to jail a journalist for not handing over material, and the judge ruled, “Police have to show something more than the possibility that the material will be of some use. They must establish that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the material is likely to be of substantial value.” Yet none of this seems to make an impact — no one learns any lessons. The same fight for principles has to take place over and over again.
The circumstances surrounding Suzanne Breen’s case — Martin McGuiness’s statement about “dissident journalists”, the fact that Suzanne’s lawyers were not allowed to see the evidence against her, the fact that she’s never been put under this pressure before for her sources — all point to a politically motivated scenario.
Following Shiv Malik’s case last year, Index held a meeting with leading media lawyers, including the lawyer Mark Stephens, the NUJ, the Society of Editors and Newspaper Society, to discuss how best to protect journalists facing production orders. We’ve since met with Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, and he’s now looking at a protocol drafted by the group which is in essence a code of conduct and of best practice that seeks to put an end to these routine fishing expeditions. It also seeks to make the courts and the police aware (although I do wonder how many times we have to make them aware…) that protection of sources is not some high-minded ethical ideal — it is the fundamental principle without which there cannot be a free press.
Jo Glanville is editor of Index on Censorship
