Tri-Service

Senior MoD Official Jailed for Selling Stories to Press

A senior Ministry of Defence official has been jailed for 12 months for commiting misconduct in a public office, it can now be reported.

Bettina Jordan-Barber was paid around £100,000 for leaking information, including exclusive details of Army disciplinary investigations, sex scandals and casualties in Afghanistan, for which she received between £1,000 and £5,000 per story.

The news can now be reported after the lifting of a press ban, following the decision to clear four former Sun newspaper journalists of conspiracy to commit misconduct by paying military officials for stories. A former Army officer and his wife were also cleared of charges.

Jordan-Barber, a mother-of-two who is married to a serving Army officer, admitted conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office between January 2004 and January 2012 and was sentenced at the Old Bailey in January this year.

Mr Justice Saunders told Jordan-Barber what she did would have affected the morale of people serving in the Armed Forces, although he accepted that none of the stories she leaked would have affected national security.

Prosecutor Michael Parroy QC said: "The overall effect was that in many cases people were quite seriously and professionally damaged as a result of the evidence being revealed to the press at a wholly inappropriate stage."

One example was a story about a sergeant major who was branded the "beast of Sandhurst" in The Sun over a bullying allegation but was later "exonerated" by an investigation, he said.

She was arrested in February 2012 and charged in November of that year, pleading guilty at the first opportunity in March 2013.

Mitigating for Jordan-Barber, Patrick Gibbs QC, said the case and publicity surrounding linked trials had taken a toll on her health and resulted in a "stew reheated with a poisonous effect".

However, the judge did reduce the jail term from three years to 12 months because of her guilty plea, the effect on her family, and the long delay until sentencing.

He also made a confiscation order of £113,000 - the amount she received from the Sun, taking into account of inflation.