U.K. Police Officer Sentenced to 15 Months in Jail in Tabloid Bribery Case

LONDON -- A Scotland Yard official who was recently found guilty of trying to sell information to the now-shuttered News of the World tabloid has been sentenced to 15 months in jail.

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A jury found detective chief inspector April Casburn, a senior counter-terrorism officer, guilty on Jan. 10. She tried to sell information to the paper, part of the News International U.K. publishing unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., about the police investigation into phone hacking at the company.

She became the first person to be charged in a bribery case tied to investigations in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. Casburn committed a breach of the public's trust by calling the now closed tabloid to offer the insider info, the jurors ruled, finding her guilty of one count of misconduct in public office.

On Friday, a British court handed down her sentence.

During the trial, it emerged that she called the tabloid in Sept. 2010, complaining about the phone hacking investigation and giving the names of two former News of the World journalists under investigation.

News Corp. later shuttered the tabloid amid the phone hacking scandal.

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai