This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21292338
The article has changed 9 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| April Casburn gets jail sentence for News of the World leak offer | April Casburn gets jail sentence for News of the World leak offer |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The first person to be prosecuted as part of the investigation into payments by journalists to officials has been sentenced to 15 months in prison. | The first person to be prosecuted as part of the investigation into payments by journalists to officials has been sentenced to 15 months in prison. |
| Det Ch Insp April Casburn, 53, from Essex, was convicted last month of misconduct in public office. | |
| She had called the News of the World after the inquiry into hacking by the tabloid reopened in 2010. | |
| The counter-terrorism officer had said she contacted the paper out of public interest. | |
| At her sentencing, Mr Justice Fulford told her it was "a corrupt attempt to make money out of sensitive and potentially very damaging information". | |
| Casburn is in the process of adopting a child, and the judge said had that not been the case she would have been sentenced to three years. | |
| The judge said her offence could not be described as whistle-blowing. | |
| "If the News of the World had accepted her offer, it's clear, in my view, that Ms Casburn would have taken the money and, as a result, she posed a significant threat to the integrity of this important police investigation," he said. | |
| The Sunday tabloid was closed down in 2011 amid outrage over its hacking into the voicemails. | |
| Her trial heard that in September 2010 Casburn contacted the News of the World, days after Scotland Yard reopened its inquiry. | |
| The newspaper did not print a story after the call and no money changed hands. | |
| The offence happened when Casburn, from Hatfield Peverel, was managing the national terrorist financial investigation unit. | |
| 'Unhappy at work' | |
| Southwark Crown Court heard one of her team had been asked to carry out financial investigations as part of the inquiry into phone hacking. | |
| The detective, at the time the most senior female investigator in Scotland Yard's counter terrorism command, denied asking for cash - and said she had contacted the newspaper out of the public interest. | |
| At her trial, Casburn said she was angry that her superiors had decided to divert officers from counter terrorism. | |
| Ahead of sentencing, Casburn's defence team told the judge her only offence was "being very unhappy at work and making a mad telephone call" to the News of the World. | |
| Her arrest was one of 59 made under Operation Elveden. | |
| Operation Elveden is running alongside the Operation Weeting inquiry into phone hacking, and Operation Tuleta into allegations that computers were hacked to obtain private information. | |
| Evidence in the trial was provided to police by News Corporation's management standards committee, which was set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at its News of the World newspaper. |