A former police officer linked to a PSNI spy operation targeting journalists has told a tribunal he will no longer co-operate with it.
Former Durham Constabulary detective Darren Ellis made the announcement in an email sent to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal last week.
Mr Ellis was the senior investigating officer with a Durham Police led investigation, Operation Yurta, into the alleged theft of confidential documents used in a film about the Loughinisland atrocity.
No Stone Unturned investigated the murders of six Catholic men as they watched a World Cup match at the Heights Bar in Loughinisland, Co Down, in 1994.
Two journalists, Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney, were later wrongly arrested during raids linked to the investigation in August 2018.
The PSNI later unreservedly apologised and agreed to pay £875,000 in damages to the journalists and the film company behind the documentary.
In 2019, Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey lodged a complaint with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) asking it to establish whether there had been any unlawful surveillance of them.
At an IPT hearing earlier this year heard details of a Durham Constabulary meeting minute between Mr Ellis and two PSNI intelligence officers.
The note made reference to a PSNI “defensive operation” against journalists that involved cross-referencing of billing information with police phone numbers on a six-monthly basis.
The Durham Constabulary document confirmed police ran the names of eight unnamed journalists through their “intelligence system”, returning negative results.
In his email to the tribunal last week, Mr Ellis wrote that as he has a “heavy workload and will and will not be able to commit any more time going forward”.
“I have repeatedly explained myself,” he wrote,
Mr Ellis told the IPT he has “had enough”.
“It seems the unfair ridicule and misrepresentation is to continue,” he wrote.
“I can assure all, colleagues, serving and retired watch these proceedings with keen interest.
“For a man of my standing to be thrown under the bus in this way will cause concern and anxiety to any who are so unfortunate to find themselves in any position similar to mine.”
The tribunal panel later agreed that the former policeman should give evidence at an IPT hearing later this year.
In 2019 the Irish News revealed that Mr Ellis had criticised former Lord Chief Justice Sire Declan Morgan in an email ex-PSNI chief constable George Hamilton described as “deeply concerning”.
The criticism came after a court hearing linked to the arrests of Mr McCaffrey and Mr Birney.
Weeks earlier the former judge, who is now the chief commissioner at the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information, was among senior judges who ruled that authorisation for search warrants obtained to carry out raids on their homes and offices had been inappropriate.
