Barry McCaffrey
 Barry McCaffrey    (journalist) | |
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 Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney face prison | |
Barry McCaffrey is a senior reporter with The Detail. He started his career in journalism as a trainee reporter in the Down Democrat in 1996 before moving to The North Belfast News in 1998. In 2001 he joined the Irish News, where he worked for 10 years.
Barry McCaffrey has written for the Ireland on Sunday, Sunday Times, Sunday Business Post and Irish Voice. In 2013 he was awarded the overall award in the "Attorney General's Justice Media Awards". The award recognised his investigation into the use of solitary confinement in Northern Ireland's prisons. In the same year McCaffrey was named CIPR Digital Journalist of the Year.[1]
On Friday 31 May 2019, Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan said in the High Court in Northern Ireland that he had heard nothing to indicate the journalists had done anything wrong and ruled that search warrants issued against the men were "inappropriate" and recommended the return of the material, under agreed terms and conditions.[2]
Under arrest
On 26 April 2019, an article headed "Search for the Huawei leaker by all means, but don't threaten a free press in the process" in the Daily Telegraph reported:
Last summer, Northern Irish journalist Barry McCaffrey had his home raided by armed police. As families readied their children for school, McCaffrey was escorted from his house on a quiet Belfast street by officers dressed in boiler suits. His colleague Trevor Birney was arrested the same morning – over allegations that a confidential document featured in their documentary "No Stone Unturned", which examines claims of state collusion in the murders of six men, had been stolen.
As Amnesty International's Northern Ireland programme director Patrick Corrigan said at the time:
- "When the police are arresting journalists who have investigated police collusion in the killing of civilians, rather than the killers and those who helped them get away with murder, people everywhere should be worried".[3]
Tweet on #WorldPressFreedomDay
On 3 May 2019 at NUJ #WorldPressFreedomDay event in Belfast, @trevorbirney contrasts the 9-month (and counting) arrests of him and @Barry_TheDetail for their journalism, to the lack of any action on former Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who the PM thinks broke the Official Secrets Act 1989.[4]
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey were arrested after their Loughinisland Massacre documentary premiered | Article | 25 March 2019 | Kerry O'Shea | Amnesty International: “We are concerned that the arrest of these journalists, in connection with their work investigating grave human rights abuses within the UK, undermines freedom of expression and freedom of the press." |
