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Sun journalist receives 18-month suspended sentence Sun journalist receives 18-month suspended sentence
(35 minutes later)
The first Sun journalist to be found guilty over payments to a public official in the wake of the Operation Elveden police investigation has received an 18-month suspended sentence.The first Sun journalist to be found guilty over payments to a public official in the wake of the Operation Elveden police investigation has received an 18-month suspended sentence.
Crime reporter Anthony France, 41, from Watford, cultivated a “corrupt relationship” with PC Timothy Edwards over four years, his trial at the Old Bailey heard.Crime reporter Anthony France, 41, from Watford, cultivated a “corrupt relationship” with PC Timothy Edwards over four years, his trial at the Old Bailey heard.
While working at Heathrow Airport in SO15 counterterrorism command, Edwards, 49, sold 38 stories and titbits of information to the journalist in exchange for more than £22,000.While working at Heathrow Airport in SO15 counterterrorism command, Edwards, 49, sold 38 stories and titbits of information to the journalist in exchange for more than £22,000.
Last week, he was found guilty of aiding and abetting Edwards to commit misconduct in a public office between March 2008 and July 2011.Last week, he was found guilty of aiding and abetting Edwards to commit misconduct in a public office between March 2008 and July 2011.
On Friday, Judge Timothy Pontius sentenced him to 18 months suspended for two years, describing him as a journalist of “hitherto unblemished character” who was “essentially a decent man of solid integrity”.On Friday, Judge Timothy Pontius sentenced him to 18 months suspended for two years, describing him as a journalist of “hitherto unblemished character” who was “essentially a decent man of solid integrity”.
More details soon ... To date, France is the only journalist to be successfully tried following the controversial Elveden probe and the first since the Crown Prosecution Service’s root-and-branch review last month which led to charges being dropped against nine out of 12 newspaper staff still awaiting trial.
Judge Pontius also sentenced France to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and ordered costs of just under 35,000 to be paid on the understanding that News International would foot the bill.
The judge told the court packed with journalists: “It was and apparently remains the practice of the Sun newspaper, and I dare say many others, to pay members of the public for their stories. Their practice is promoted, supported and encouraged at the paper at all levels within the internal structure.
“It is a practice that is certainly not improper itself, less is it to be condemn, least of all by me as long as it does not involve encouragement by a journalist to anyone holding public office to abuse their trusted position for payment by providing confidential information in order it might be used to feed the public appetite for news that sometimes amounts to nothing more than titillating gossip.”
Judge Pontius said he did not doubt that many of the articles France wrote were in the public interest “in the pursuit of responsible investigative journalism” although a minority were “obviously salacious” and breached privacy.
He said payment for stories went through a clearly recognised and accepted procedure at the Sun and it was not a case of France handing over a “grubby envelope” in a dark corner of a pub.
“The defendant was following an accepted procedure that had existed for some time. He had not recruited Timothy Edwards himself, he had inherited him from a colleague.”
On his decision to suspend sentence, Judge Pontius said a journalist should expect a sentence of roughly half that of a public officer, but in this case it would not be in the public interest of jail “an experienced journalist of hitherto unblemished character – essentially a decent man of solid integrity”.
Earlier in mitigation, Adrian Keeling QC said: “First and foremost, Mr France did not deliberately do something that he knew to be criminally wrong.
“If there was a wrong culture, as clearly the jury found, it is not one of Mr France’s making. It was inevitably created by others for their benefit and sustained by others for their benefit.”
He said that, since no one else has been convicted or stands to be punished, it was inevitable that France would feel the “inequality” of that.
He added: “There is a sense it is Mr France who held the most junior full-time position to hold at the Sun that stands to be punished for the whole system.”
As a result of the conviction, the overwhelming likelihood is he will lose his job. Mr Keeling said that will be a personal tragedy for France.
The lawyer added that News International had indicated that it would not be prepared to pay France’s prosecution costs but his family had offered to help as far as they were able.
The judge said that, if this proved to be the case, the matter could be brought back to court and the order adjusted.
The trial had heard that Edwards passed on details ranging from airline pilots being breathalysed to a drunken model flying into a rage after “catching her boyfriend romping with a woman next to him”.
But France denied wrongdoing, telling jurors he had never been advised by anyone at the Sun that speaking to a police officer – or any public official – might be against the law.
Asked what he would have done if he thought talking to Edwards might be illegal, he said: “I would never have got involved with it. I would have told him to get lost. I’m a man of good character not involved in crime.”
The court heard that Edwards was “given” to France as a source. After they met at a pub in 2008, he was told by a colleague “I’ve spoken to a lawyer and it’s fine”, he said.
France also told jurors of his difficulties working for a “homophobic bully” in the office who stripped him of his crime reporter title in 2010.
The jury in France’s trial was not told that Edwards pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office and was jailed for two years in 2014.
Reporters from the Sun, as well as other newspapers, filed into the Old Bailey courtroom, occupying every spare seat on the press bench, in the public gallery, and even the jury box.
Afterwards, France embraced family members and colleagues as he left court.