11 Jan 2013

Senior police officer found guilty of misconduct

8:28 am on 11 January 2013

A senior British counter-terrorism police officer has been found guilty of misconduct in public office after calling the News of the World to discuss an investigation into phone-hacking by its reporters.

detective chief inspector April Casburn, 53, phoned the tabloid newspaper on 11 September, 2010, and disclosed various details of a confidential police probe that had just begun and was the subject of intense media speculation.

Her was the first criminal trial to arise out of a web of police investigations connected to the hacking scandal, which was in its early stages at the time.

It later escalated into a much wider crisis affecting British media, politics and police. The News of the World was shut down in July 2011.