Police in Northern Ireland monitored the phone communications data of the BBC’s former security editor Brian Rowan in an attempt to identify his confidential sources.
Court documents disclosed by the BBC Spotlight programme reveal that Rowan was subject to surveillance after he reported the murder of an agent working for MI5 and Special Branch. The case came to light after the BBC and journalist Vincent Kearney brought a case to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) for unlawful surveillance of Kearney’s phone data.
The IPT found in Kearney’s favour last week. The case represents the first time that the Security Service, MI5, has been ordered to pay compensation to a journalist for unlawfully monitoring their phone data.
According to BBC Spotlight, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) launched Operation Mally after Rowan wrote a story for the Belfast Telegraph about Denis Donaldson, who was shot and killed in 2006 after being exposed as an agent for Special Branch and MI5.
The PSNI monitored Rowan’s phone data for any contact with police phone numbers in an attempt to identify his sources.
Operation Mally
The programme reported that Operation Mally expanded, and in 2007 detectives began compiling lists of journalists, including mobile numbers, home landlines, email addresses and home addresses.
These surveillance operations fell outside the scope of an independent review conducted by Angus McCullough KC, into police surveillance of journalists and lawyers, which investigated incidents between 2011 and 2024.
McCullough found there had been failings but concluded there was no “widespread and systemic” surveillance of journalists, lawyers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). He reported in September 2025 that the PSNI had made 21 applications for communications data to identify journalists’ sources without recognising the “overriding public interest” in protecting their confidentiality.
The report found that the police force also maintained a secret register containing the phone numbers of more than 1,000 journalists and others as part of a “defensive operation” to identify PSNI staff who had spoken to journalists.
PSNI chief Jon Boutcher said that he had ended the practice.
Surveillance may have gone further than phone data
Rowan told BBC Spotlight that he believed surveillance may have gone beyond monitoring the phone numbers he had called or who had called him. He said that as far back as 2002, he was warned by a police officer that his “phone might be on”, which he took as a warning that his conversations were being listened to.
He told the programme that he had been told by a contact that MI5 had critiqued a phone conversation he had over the Denis Donaldson story.
“The only way you can critique that conversation is if you have a transcript of it, or you’ve heard it, or you’re aware of its detail,” said Rowan. “So, I do not rule out that possibility that this went much further than simply trying to match one number up with another number.”
Rowan told BBC Spotlight that the PSNI did not inform him about Operation Mally when they disclosed the information to Kearney and the BBC during Vincent Kearney’s case at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
“What else were they up to? What else? What were the other intrusions?” he asked.
PSNI chief offers to meet Rowan
The PSNI chief constable, Jon Boutcher, has offered to meet Rowan to discuss the matter. “Mr Rowan is a professional and respected investigative journalist, and I am happy to meet him to discuss any issues or concerns he may have,” he said.
Boutcher said in a statement that significant changes to practice and policy had been implemented since the Home Office remedied defects in the 2008 Communications Data Code in 2014.
“It has been noted by Mr McCullough KC that no further breaches of the code have been authorised since that time by the PSNI,” he added.
McCullough KC is due to produce a follow-up report following the IPT’s verdict in the Kearney case.
