Former Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan has said he had been reliably informed the PSNI operated a practice monitoring Journalist and Solicitors phones for several years from about 2011.
Mr McQuillan said:
“This is so bad, so awful, there needs to be a public inquiry,” he said.
He claimed hundreds of phones were being monitored by the unit, which “operated from a separate office with its own laptop, completely outside other force computer systems”.
“In theory this should have been focusing on misconduct by police officers and allegations some officers were leaking information to journalists,” Mr McQuillan said.
“But it then began to spread out into monitoring the phones of journalists and lawyers,” he added.
The PSNI has rejected Mr McQuillan’s comments.
In a statement, Deputy Chief Constable Chris Todd said: “The PSNI does not accept as accurate the comments made in the interview with Mr McQuillan.
“To suggest that a stand-a-lone computer system was in operation to avoid proper scrutiny and control is simply not the case.
“Our anti-corruption unit used a secure system that was not accessible to the wider police service, but was subject to the same scrutiny as all other police systems.”
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