CLEVELAND Police’s unlawful use of Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) has exposed the extent that the force was prepared to go to discover the sources of media leaks.

Snooping police officers seized more than a million minutes’ worth of call data from six people in 2012, which included the records of thousands of text messages and telephone calls of two Northern Echo reporters – Julia Breen and Graeme Hetherington.

According to the documents seen by the newspaper, an officer from the force’s professional standards department (PSD) even went as far as recording the contents of a tweet.

The sorry saga for the force started with an anonymous telephone call in April 2012, tipping off the newspaper that an employment tribunal was due to take place involving members of the PSD.

Inspector Tony Rock, the officer leading the investigation into the media leaks, wrote in his disclosure major incident workbook on April 10: “There does not appear to be anything of relevance to this investigation on Twitter. However, he has disclosed that he was to conduct early morning raids with Cleveland Police and hence he was going to bed early.”

Officers then decided to use RIPA legislation to continue the search for the source of the leak and applied for four months’ of telecommunications data from the suspected source of the leaks Mark Dias and Steve Matthews, a solicitor acting on behalf of Cleveland Police Federation, and three reporters from The Northern Echo, although one of the numbers was in fact the mobile of a national newspaper journalist.

Data seized by the force showed more than a hundred pages of numbers had been collected, recording the time and length of calls coming into and out of mobile phones and landlines, as well as when text messages were sent or received.

In documents submitted to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), it was evident in July 2012 that the Crown Prosecution Service had ruled out any prospect of a criminal prosecution – one of the cornerstones required for a police force to use the legislation.

Yesterday’s IPT ruled that the force had unlawfully used the legislation for the period from January 1, 2012 and May 1, 2012. For two of the months, reporter Julia Breen was on maternity leave.

In December the force had admitted it had acted unlawfully when applying for subsequent RIPA applications in July and August.

This is not the first time a police force’s use of RIPA has ended up at the IPT. In November 2015, News Group, the owner of The Sun, and the Metropolitan Police appeared in a tribunal following the ‘Plebgate’ story in breach of the usual safeguards for the protection of journalistic sources.

Following the resulting change in guidelines, police forces across the country would need a judge to sign off any RIPA request before they could access any telecommunications data from journalists.

Mr Spittal said: “The law changed after the Investigatory Powers Tribunal heard the News Group case and that change in the law meant that if any police force is considering the use of RIPA powers on journalists than that has go in front of a judge.

“A judge has to determine whether that is right or wrong and I think that builds that extra layer of safeguard that is really, really important, it’s absolutely right that this country holds dear the freedom of speech and for the ability of people to be able to talk confidently to reporters.

“I’m confident that that change in the law, and the governance arrangements we have within the force, it is extremely unlikely for it ever to be able to happen again.”

The force is now looking at 60 RIPA applications it submitted over a six year period.