A journalist who broke a promise to loyalist supergrass Clifford McKeown and named him as a hit-man yesterday refused to answer questions in Belfast Crown Court about other sources he had.
Mr Nick Martin-Clark told Mr Jim Allister QC, for the defence, that he would be "crossing the boundary" of his source's confidence if he revealed the contents of notes he had taken in other conversations. "I am taking this position because it is the right one to take from a journalist's point of view," he said.
However, the defence lawyer accused him of attempting to hide behind his journalistic ethics by refusing to name other names.
Mr Allister, who said that he was "considerably concerned at the turn of events", referred to Mr Martin-Clark as "a man who calls himself a journalist, who's here to expose a journalistic source, who wants to take refuge in respect of everything else, in the privilege of being a journalist".
Mr Martin-Clark claims that McKeown confessed to murdering Mr Michael McGoldrick at the height of the Drumcree protests in July 1996.