Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
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.
See more information at:
ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/2025/feb/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.
See more information at:
ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/2025/feb/journalism-politics-and-british-justice
