CLEVELAND Police's use of a snoopers' law to access the phone records of journalists from The Northern Echo to track down a whistleblower has been referred to a panel led by a High Court Judge.

The Northern Echo has obtained written evidence that the force used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to grab five months' worth of telecoms records from the private mobile phone of at least one journalist in 2012.

There are also claims that police accessed the records of at least two other journalists, a solicitor, the-then chair of Cleveland's Police Federation Steve Matthews, and the whistleblower.

Stockton North MP Alex Cunningham wrote to the Home Secretary to express his concerns last year over the matter and has now received a reply from security minister John Hayes MP.

Mr Cunningham said: "I am extremely concerned about the fact the police used these particular powers to spy on journalists. It appears there is some form of inquiry going on into what exactly happened. It should never have happened in the first place.

"I can think of no justifiable reason for the police or security services to have to access the phone records of regional newspaper journalists."

Mr Hayes confirmed the matter was being looked into by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which is led by a High Court judge and which recently ruled that the Metropolitan Police's seizure of The Sun journalists' phone records as part of the "Plebgate" row was unlawful. In that case just over a week's worth of records were accessed.

The Police Federation, the union representing rank and file officers, has also referred a complaint by an individual to the Independent Police Complaints Commission over the seizure of the six individuals' phone records.

The leak investigation related to a 2012 story in The Northern Echo which revealed an internal report at Cleveland Police had concluded there were "elements of institutional racism" within the force.

In his letter to Mr Cunningham, Mr Hayes said: "I should emphasise the fundamental importance of a free press to a free society.

"Acquisition of communications data by public authorities under RIPA must be both necessary for one of the statutory purposes and proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by such acquisition."

He then pointed out that the draft Investigatory Powers Bill sets out in law new protections intended to stop police accessing journalists’ call records in order to identify their sources.

In March last year new guidance was also introduced on the use of RIPA to ensure police forces could only access journalists' phone records with the approval of a "judicial commissioner".

Cleveland Police said last night that it did not wish to comment.