A former senior officer on the Police Service of Northern Eire is looking for authorized recommendation following feedback attributed to her throughout a listening to of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
Barbara Grey, former assistant chief constable on the PSNI, stated she was “deeply angered and offended” by feedback attributed to her by a former detective who headed a leak investigation in Northern Eire.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal is investigating claims that the PSNI and different police forces unlawfully positioned journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney underneath surveillance after they produced a documentary exposing police failures to research the homicide of harmless Catholics by a paramilitary group.
Former detective Darren Ellis emailed Durham Constabulary, claiming {that a} senior PSNI officer, now recognized as Grey, had urged him to “train warning” when coping with solicitors, barristers and members of the judiciary.
“The senior officer knowledgeable me of the tensions inside the authorized system and suggested me to ‘train warning’ when coping with solicitors, barristers and members of the judiciary, given the disproportionate illustration of these from a Roman Catholic background,” Ellis wrote in an electronic mail to officers at Durham Constabulary.
“She knowledgeable me of what she thought-about to be ‘perverse decision-making’ inside felony justice processes by these of a spiritual and political persuasion, given the prevalence of these from a catholic background inside the Northern Eire courts system,” Ellis wrote.
In a press release seen by Laptop Weekly, Grey that she would search authorized recommendation about Ellis’s feedback.
“I’m conscious of feedback attributed to me yesterday because of proof given by Mr Darren Ellis to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal sitting in London,” she stated.
“I’m deeply angered and offended by these feedback. To make clear, and for the avoidance of any doubt, I’ve the utmost respect for the judiciary and wider authorized occupation in Northern Eire and have performed so all through my 35 yr profession,” she added.
“I firmly imagine within the elementary precept of equality, integrity and impartiality,” she stated.
Grey stated that opposite to proof given by Ellis on 2 of October 2024 on the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, Grey had immediately challenged Ellis on written feedback he had made criticising Northern Eire’s Lord Chief Justice.
She stated she thought-about the feedback to be completely unacceptable and inappropriate.
Ellis was introduced in by the PSNI and Durham Police in 2018 to go an investigation into leaked paperwork had been referred to in a documentary movie made by Birney and McCaffrey, exposing police collusion with a paramilitary group within the Loughinisland murders in 1994.
The tribunal is investigating allegations that the PSNI and different police forces unlawfully positioned the journalists underneath surveillance as a part of their investigation.
