After the murder of the MI5 agent, the police began monitoring the reporters’ phones

Operation Mali, including Rowan, fell outside the review’s timeframe.

The operation expanded into extensive searches for unauthorized communications between journalists’ phones and police phones.

Butcher has stopped practicing.

He also pointed out that there has been no illegal interference with any journalist’s phone information since the legislative change was made ten years ago.

There will be further follow-up work carried out by the McCullough Review.

Boucher said: “Significant changes in practice and policy have been implemented since the 2007 deficiencies in the Communications Data Code were rectified by the Home Office in 2015.

“Since then no further breaches of the code have been authorized by the PSNI, according to Mr McCullough Casey.

“This now reflects the clear effectiveness of monitoring for these types of applications.”