Phoenix Law Statement – McCullough Review

PSNI apologises to two prominent human rights solicitors for surveillance 

Today, it has been revealed that two prominent human rights solicitors, Peter Corrigan and Darragh Mackin of Phoenix Law, were the subject of unlawful surveillance by the police.  The McCullough review found that the surveillance trespassed upon legal professional privilege.  The Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has issued a personal apology to both Mr Mackin and Mr Corrigan for the police actions. 

Mr Mackin and Mr Corrigan have responded as follows:

“For years, we have advocated for our clients without fear or favour. We take great pride in having represented people from all walks of life, from all sides of the community.  Each of our clients are entitled to the very basic protections under the rule of law, which includes the principle of legal professional privilege. 

Today confirms that those who are tasked with administering the law, have broken the law.  In doing so they have had zero regard for our clients’ rights, driven by the sole motivation of a ‘win at whatever cost’ approach. 

In this jurisdiction, surveillance has continued to play an oversized role in the relationship between the state and private citizen. With great power, comes great responsibility. With great policing power in the north, comes grave irresponsibility. 

We were never naive enough to rule out the possibility that we would be seen as legitimate targets by our opponents in the other corner of the ring. We were however naive enough to believe that there would be boundaries within those battles.  

For us however, it is an uncomfortable reality that our families and their respective privacy was an expendable chip in the Orwellian dystopia.   Privacy is not the price we should pay, for simply doing our job. 

Today’s findings make clear that the PSNI never gave a second thought to attacking our characters or intruding upon our privacy, in an all-out effort to fight outside the ring and sabotage the respective Court processes.

Techniques like this, we can all agree, ought to be alien to a modern democracy and instead are more akin to a home in Russia or North Korea.  

At the epicentre of this scandal are two men whose fair trial rights were eroded with contempt.  We were just goldfish in a bowl for the police, in their efforts to secure convictions at all costs.   

We are now formally instructed to bring this matter to the urgent attention of the CCRC who are currently adjudicating on the case of the Craigavon 2.  

Darragh Mackin                                                                  Peter Corrigan

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Our Mr Peter Corrigan and Mr Darragh Mackin are the lawyers referenced in ‘Case Study 1’.  The case in question was the appeal proceedings of R v McConville & Wooton (‘The Craigavon 2’ case). 

• The Chief Constable of the PSNI has issued a formal apology to both Mr Mackin and Mr Corrigan on 23^rd September 2025 in advance of the report publication.    

• The submissions by Phoenix Law were the single submission upheld by the Review at Para 66.3. 

• The Review has found that the surveillance yielded data relating to individuals unrelated t the case in question (Para 41.9).