'Reveal Source' Paisley Ordered

Despite the involvement of the NI Executive First Minister, the Lord Chief Justice's Office has ordered a prominent local politician to reveal his 'source' to a controversial inquiry.

Mr Justice Gillen today ordered Ian Paisley Jnr (pictured) to provide the Billy Wright Inquiry with the name of the prison officer who contacted him about the destruction of files by the Northern Ireland Prison Service.

On 21 June last year, Ian Paisley Jnr wrote to Billy Wright's father providing him with information that the Northern Ireland Prison Service had employed people to destroy around 5,600 files before the Data Protection Act came into effect.

This information, which was provided by a "senior prison officer", claimed that the decision to destroy the files was "taken at the top".

As a result, the Chairman of the Inquiry, Lord MacLean, considered that the identity of the prison officer was "of great importance to the Inquiry" and that it would be in the public interest for Mr Paisley Jnr to provide this information.

Mr Paisley Jnr called evidence from Peter Robinson, the Stormont First Minister - and a fellow DUP politican - who said that if an assurance of confidentiality was given by a public representative, and subsequently breached, then the public would not come forward to give information of this type.

He also said that the role of public representatives would be diminished because they could not challenge Government on matters, which might, as a consequence, remain hidden.

Mr Justice Gillen said that, conventionally, confidentiality has been confined to journalists, doctors or priests who owe a duty to their sources, patients or parishioners: "There is much to be said in favour of the argument that for a democratic and elected representative of the people the public interest in the preservation of the duty of confidentiality is at least as great even though it is not enshrined in legislation."

However, Mr Justice Gillen concluded that requiring Mr Paisley Jnr to provide the name or other identifying information about the prison officer who contacted him is "measured and justified when set against the weight of the freedom of expression which must be accorded to public representatives".

He said that he was satisfied that the Inquiry had provided a clear and compelling case and ordered Mr Paisley Jnr to provide this information to the Inquiry within 17 days.

See: Wright Inquiry 'Goes Wrong'

(BMcC/JM)