Sex abuse papers among material seized by police

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 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.

The 2017 film broke new ground by naming the suspects it said were involved in the UVF killings of six Catholic men who were gathered in a village pub watching the Republic of Ireland play a World Cup football match on TV.

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.

In response, Durham Constabulary, which oversaw the operation, has insisted it had the legal authority to remove material unrelated to Loughinisland.

Mr Birney said people who had trusted reporters to share their experiences at the hands of alleged paedophile Fr Finnegan had been “compromised” by the mass seizures.

The cleric, who died in 2002, has been accused of a litany of child sex abuse during his time as a teacher at St Colman’s College in Newry, Co Down.

The victim evidence had been gathered by sister organisation The Detail, an investigative news website that shares the offices with Fine Point.