A BELFAST court has upheld a journalist’s right to keep confidential her sources of information on the Real IRA after police had ordered her to surrender her documents.
Suzanne Breen, northern editor of the Sunday Tribune, had been told by the Police Service of Northern Ireland to hand over a mobile telephone, computer records and notes on the dissident republican terrorist group.
However, with Ms Breen fearing she would be targeted for assassination if she co-operated with detectives investigating the killing of two soldiers, Belfast Recorder’s Court ruled her right to life outweighed public interest in the prevention of crime.
Judge Tom Burgess said: “I can accept that there is objective evidence that she would fall within a group of people deemed ‘legitimate targets’ against whom this murderous organisation would all too quickly carry out their threats of violence and murder.”
Ms Breen had been resisting PSNI requests to hand over her notes used in two stories.
She received the Real IRA’s claim of responsibility for the murders of sappers Mark Quinsey (23) and Patrick Azimkar (21), who were shot dead at Massereene barracks, Co Antrim, in March.
The PSNI went to court seeking a production order, claiming the material was of importance to the investigation into the shootings.
But along with citing the threat to her life she feared from any perceived collaboration with British forces, Ms Breen had insisted that she must protect her sources.
A number of British and Irish journalists gave evidence in court to back her stance. Those who went into the witness box included her editor, Nóirín Hegarty; Alex Thomson of Channel 4 News; Liam Clarke from the Sunday Times; Roy Greenslade of London City University and BBC Panorama reporter John Ware.
All of them were united in stressing that a journalist must honour any guarantee of confidentiality given to those who provide information.
Delivering his verdict on the case, Judge Burgess described the murders of the soldiers, and the wounding of colleagues and pizza delivery men, as a “cold-blooded and ruthless attack carried out with the use of considerable fire power”.
He recognised the strong public interest in bringing to justice those responsible, but also made clear the real risk to Breen’s life if she were to disclose the information.
The recorder held that there was objective information that the Real IRA was a “murderous group of people who would regard any handing over of any information in the possession of Ms Breen over and above the publication of their claim for responsibility as exposing her to be treated as a legitimate target with the murderous consequences that could and may well follow from that”.
He added: “I have therefore concluded that in this case, taking into account all of the factors to which I have referred and which I have sought to balance fairly and objectively in respect of both public interests, that the application for the Production Order should be refused.”