Brian Rowan was born in Belfast in 1959 and is the BBC's Northern Ireland security editor. In 2001, he was named specialist journalist of the year in Northern Ireland for his reporting on the loyalists, on the IRA's decision to put arms beyond use and his exclusive report on the Police Ombudsman's review of the Omagh bomb investigation. He was the BBC's nominated journalist for the 2003 Sony News Award for his work on the Castlereagh and Stormont investigations.