Civil servant failed 2004 security vetting due to intelligence report on brother

BBC Northern Ireland home affairs correspondent, Vincent Kearney, reports on the case of Kevin Kennedy, who is suing the PSNI after he was forced to resign from a job with the Northern Ireland Policing Board in 2004 after failing a security vetting.

Last month, Mr Kennedy failed in a legal attempt to gain access to the intelligence information on which the police based their assessment.

During a hearing at the High Court in Belfast, it was revealed that the Board was told during the summer of 2004 that Mr Kennedy failed security vetting because of historical and recent intelligence regarding his brother, Dermot Kennedy, which had been assessed as reliable and accurate information.

It said the intelligence was very sensitive and a matter of national security.

Dermot Kennedy is a former Sinn Fein Westminster and Assembly election candidate and has never been convicted of a criminal offence.

According to ARK, Dermot Kennedy was an unsuccessful candidate for Sinn Féin in Strangford in the 2003 Assembly Election and the 2005 General Election, in Castlereagh South in the 2005 Local Government Election, and again in Strangford in the 2007 Assembly Election.

He did not stand in this year’s General Election.

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