The PSNI has responded to claims it spied on a journalist working on a documentary about the death of a teenage schoolboy in Northern Ireland.
It also rejected a suggestion it may have been behind a break-in to a car belonging to Donal MacIntyre at Heathrow Airport in October 2024.
Mr MacIntyre is working on a book and a crowd-funded documentary about the death of 14-year-old Noah Donohoe.
The schoolboy was found naked in a storm drain in north Belfast in 2020, a week after he went missing.
There has been public concern around the case, including criticism of the police search at the time of his disappearance and much speculation about the circumstances of his death.
A coroner's inquest is pending.
PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher addressed the allegations at a meeting of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.
He said that in July 2023 Northern Ireland’s Attorney General Brenda King issued an advisory notice.
In it she put the media, and social media users on notice that the inquest proceedings were active and that contempt of court legislation applied to any reporting or commentary on the case.
Mr Boutcher said that in August of that year, following discussions with the Northern Ireland Court service, the PSNI had collated public tweets from two social media accounts on Twitter/X - neither of which he named.
"All of these communications would have been publicly accessible, but I will accept that the publisher of the posts would not be aware that the PSNI had viewed and captured those publications."
He said no journalistic material was "viewed or recorded or sought" by the PSNI.
He said the material gathered by PSNI officers had been shared with the Office of the Attorney General in October of that year.
"From my understanding, this issue amounts to the monitoring of two open source publicly available accounts on Twitter commentating on what had happened to Noah and it took place to protect the legal integrity of the coronial proceedings in Noah's case," he told the Policing Board.
He said no other force or agency had been directed or requested by the PSNI to take any steps.
Jon Boutcher took over as PSNI Chief Constable in November 2023.
He said he became aware of the allegations on Friday 5 February, 2025 and referred them to a review body set up to examine concerns over police surveillance of journalists and lawyers in Northern Ireland.
That work is being undertaken by Angus McCullough KC and is called the McCullough Review.
"This allegation is clearly within his remit, and I am confident that in due course he will give his findings in relation to it when he reports," the Chief Constable said.
