A Detective Chief Inspector has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for offering to sell information to the now closed News of the World newspaper.

53-year-old April Casburn is the first person to be prosecuted in the ongoing Operation Elveden, investigating payments made by journalists to officials.

It is understood that just days after the inquiry into hacking by the tabloid reopened in 2010, Mrs Casburn phoned and offered to sell information to the paper.

The offence happened when Casburn, from Hatfield Peverel, was managing the national terrorist financial investigation unit.

At the time she was the most senior female investigator in Scotland Yard's counter terrorism command.

Denying that she asked for cash, she claimed she had contacted the newspaper out of the public interest.

However, Mr Justice Fulford 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.

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 he was particularly concerned about the child, and admitted that her absence while she is in prison could be damaging.

However, he said that, had she not been arrested, the detective would have returned to work by now, and therefore the child would be cared for by others anyway.

(H)