The Bloody Sunday inquiry has suffered a setback in efforts to force a journalist to reveal the identity of a soldier who gave him information about the killing of 13 civilians by paratroopers.
The Court of Appeal in Belfast ruled that contempt proceedings against Toby Harnden, the Daily Telegraph's former Ireland correspondent, are criminal in nature rather than civil.
The decision means that Mr Harnden will have additional legal rights when the High Court comes to deal with an application to punish him for refusing to reveal the identity of the former paratrooper who was on duty on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972.
If Mr Harnden is eventually found to be in contempt of the inquiry, he could be sent to jail for two years.
The three judges unanimously dismissed an appeal by Lord Saville, chairman of the inquiry, against a decision by Mr Justice Coghlin last April that the contempt proceedings were criminal in nature.
Mr Harnden had refused to name the soldier because he had given him an undertaking that he would not say or do anything that might identify him. The soldier's recollection formed the basis of a story published on May 20th, 1999, but Mr Harnden told the inquiry that within a few days of it appearing, all records were destroyed.
He said normal journalistic practice would be to preserve such records but he had decided to destroy them so as to prevent any subsequent disclosure.
To do otherwise, he said, would be a breach of trust between a journalist and his sources, as well as breaking his assurance of confidentiality. In yesterday's reserved judgment, the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, said the threat of punishment inherent in contempt proceedings meant they took on the colouring of a criminal rather than a merely coercive matter.
"Taking into account also the nature and amount of the penalty which may be involved, we conclude, in agreement with the judge, that those proceedings are essentially punitive," added Sir Robert, who heard the appeal with Lord Justices Nicholson and Campbell.