Detective guilty of bid to sell details to newspaper

Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn, 53, was yesterday found guilty of misconduct in public office for offering to sell details to the News of the World.

She admitted contacting the newspaper, claiming she was worried that resources meant for fighting terrorism might be wasted on the phone hacking inquiry, which her colleagues saw “as a bit of a jolly”.

But jurors at Southwark Crown Court took just three-and-a-half hours to unanimously find her guilty.

Mr Justice Fulford warned she is likely to face jail, despite being in the process of adopting a three-year-old child. “A real possibility is an immediate custodial sentence, but I’m obviously going to have to consider very carefully the issues that we’ve ventilated this afternoon and any other mitigation.”

Casburn was managing the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit when she made the call on September 11, 2010.

She told the court she was angered by her colleagues’ attitudes to the phone hacking inquiry, and said there was “palpable excitement” over who would get to meet actress Sienna Miller.

Casburn, from Hatfield Peverel in Essex, likened the male-dominated unit to the TV series Life On Mars.

Speaking outside court, Detective Chief Superintendent Gordon Briggs, who is overseeing the inquiries into phone hacking, corrupt payments and other privacy breaches, said: “It’s totally unacceptable for a serving police officer to leak confidential information to journalists for private gain. In doing so they let down the public and they let down their hard-working, honest colleagues.”

Det Ch Supt Briggs said that this was not a case of whistleblowing, despite Casburn’s claims she was concerned about counter-terrorism resources being wasted.

He said: “There may be occasions when putting certain information in the public domain, so-called whistleblowing, may 
be tolerated. This is not one of them.”

Casburn will be sentenced in the week beginning January 28.