Loughinisland Arrests ➖ Material Seized Included Files On Fr Finnegan

From the Irish Times a piece on serious PSNI abuse of journalistic privilege.

Police took papers unrelated to investigation into film on murders of six men in 1994

Confidential evidence from alleged sex abuse victims of a notorious priest are among sensitive files seized by detectives in Northern Ireland investigating two film-makers.

Police who raided the offices of Fine Point Films in Belfast with a warrant to remove material related to its documentary on a loyalist massacre also took away a tranche of papers linked to a journalistic probe into the late Father Malachy Finnegan.

The search came as producers Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey were arrested earlier this year over the alleged theft of a police watchdog document that appeared in their film No Stone Unturned on the murders of six men in Loughinisland, Co Down, in 1994 …

Mr Birney has now revealed the scope and scale of the material taken, accusing police of massively overstepping the terms of their warrant and seizing years of work he maintains should be protected by journalistic privilege.

Continue Reading @ The Irish Times

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