Alan Tierney and Richard Trunkfield sentenced to 10 and 16 months respectively for selling information to the Sun

A former policeman and an ex-prison officer have received prison sentences at the Old Bailey after pleading guilty to selling information to the Sun.

Alan Tierney, a former Surrey police constable, was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 months in prison after admitting to selling details to the Sun of the separate arrests of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and the mother of the former England football captain John Terry.

Richard Trunkfield, a former operational support officer at a high security prison near Milton Keynes, received a 16-month prison sentence for passing on details about one of James Bulger's killers, Jon Venables.

Both Tierney and Trunkfield pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office at the Old Bailey earlier this month.

Their guilty pleas are the first arising from the Metropolitan police's Operation Elveden investigation into alleged illegal newsgathering, in which police have arrested 107 people - most of whom are journalists - over two years.

Handing down the sentences at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Fulford said of both Trunkfield and Tierney: "This country has long prided itself in the integrity of its public officials and these cynical acts of betrayal of these high standards have a profoundly corrosive effect.

"It is wholly against the public interest for those who hold public office cynically to profit out of the misery or unfortunate circumstances of those for whom they are responsible."

Tierney admitted one count of misconduct in public office between 26 March and 3 April 2009, and a second between 2 and 7 December 2009.

Prosecutors previously said he had been paid a total of £1,750 for the leaks, including payment for a story about the arrest of Wood, who accepted a formal police caution on suspicion of assaulting his Russian partner, Ekaterina Ivanova.

The other case involved the leak of details about Sue Terry and Sue Poole, the mother and mother-in-law of John Terry, who were arrested on suspicion of shoplifting in Surrey. They both accepted cautions.

Trunkfield pleaded guilty to receiving £3,450 between 2 March and 30 April 2010 for stories in relation to "a high-profile prisoner".

It could not initially be reported that the prisoner involved was Venables because of legal restrictions on reporting his whereabouts, but the court heard on Wednesday that Venables was no longer at the prison.

He gave the Sun confidential details of where Venables was held, about his regime and the fact that he was somewhat isolated, the court heard.

The Sun's internal accounts system record four sets of payments for £750 for "Bulger killer's cover blown", "Jon Venables back in custody", "Armed cops grab Bulger killer" and an "exclusive on Jon Venables case". He received another £350 for the story "Jon Venables snubbed by family" and £100 for a tip that led to a story headlined "Five minutes to pack: Cops whisk him away".

Fulford said the public expected police to "behave scrupulousy, fairly and with complete integrity with any information that comes into its possession", and Tierney had jeopardised a potential criminal trial after handing over the name and address of a witness to a suspected assault by Wood on Ivanova.

"This was a disgraceful way for a police officer to act. The most serious aspect of the two offences is that, in relation to count two, the defendant [Wood] provided the name and, most significantly, the address of the witness and the witness's wife," said Fulford, warning that it could have interfered with the course of justice.

He told the court that it could have resulted in the press camping outside the witness's home and with the witness deciding not to participate in a potential trial.

Mark Bryant-Heron, counsel for the crown, told the Old Bailey that Tierney was one of the officers who arrived on the scene when Terry and Poole were arrested and knew the incident was newsworthy because the two women involved were the mother and mother-in-law of Terry.

Bill Emlyn Jones, representing Tierney, told the court he was "an effective and well-regarded police officer" who was commended five times during his 11 years as a constable.

After the Sun ran an exclusive story about the arrests of Terry's relatives, Tierney contacted the tabloid from the email address guildford1gmail.com to correct the reported value of the goods involved, from £850 to £1,450. He confirmed he was the arresting officer and agreed to provide information on the basis that his identity would not be revealed.

He was then contacted by journalists on the newspaper, and was offered a "donation" for a detailed account of what the women said and what they were accused of taking. He was paid with a cheque in his brother-in-law's name.

Mobile phone billing records showed he also tipped the paper off when civil legal action was started by the Terrys.

Bryant-Heron told the court that the second offence involved the passing on of confidential details in relation to the arrest of Wood. Tierney had been deputised to take a statement from a witness to the alleged assault, which took place on a street, the following day.

Tierney contacted a journalist at the Sun, making one of the calls while he was at a police station. The Sun journalist recorded these calls to his computer hard drive. In the first call, around 2pm on 3 December 2009, he told the journalist he had just left the station and gave the reporter the name and address of the witness. At 5pm he spoke to the journalist again and a story appeared the next day in the paper.

The crown told the court he was paid £1,000 but that "the defendant's case was that he only received £500".

Emlyn Jones put seven mitigating factors to the judge prior to Tierney's sentencing, saying he had not sold any stories before or after these two incidents, which he deeply regretted.

"He has lost everything already. He has been dismissed from the job that he loved and he has therefore lost his income, his reputation, his family. His wife has separated from him and contact with his children has been extremely difficult," he said. "His fall from grace is complete already."

He told the judge that the incidents were "opportunistic" and that Tierney had not actively sought to trawl any police databases to provide information to the newspaper, nor had he passed on information that would have profited a criminal.

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