Thomas Ridgeway receives 12-month jail term, with his mother given suspended sentence for aiding and abetting her son

A Metropolitan police officer has been jailed for 12 months for selling information to the Sun, it can be revealed for the first time.

Thomas Ridgeway, 31, passed on two stories to the tabloid, one about an actor who tried to kill himself, and another about alleged sexual activity by police officers at a pub, the Old Bailey heard.

He pleaded guilty earlier this year but his crime and his sentencing in May could not be reported before now for legal reasons.

His mother, Sandra Ridgeway, 55, was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison, suspended for 26 weeks, after pleading guilty on Monday to one count of aiding and abetting her son in misconduct in public office.

Prosecutor Stuart Biggs said that in Sandra Ridgeway’s police interview she said she had asked her son whether he should be doing this, to which he replied: “Fine, police officers often sell stories.” When she pressed him on it, he told her “Mum, trust me if anything comes from this, I would get is a slapped wrist from work.”

Biggs said the story about the actor attempting to kill himself had appeared on the front page of the Sun on two consecutive days.

“It caused him to distrust those around him,” Biggs said, adding that this included the actor’s friends, the police and the ambulance team, because he didn’t know who had tipped off the tabloid.

At the Old Bailey on Monday, Sandra Ridgeway’s counsel Kevin Baumber said that her son had accepted that he had “dragged his mother” into the situation “lying through his teeth” about the possibility that he might be committing a crime.

He accepted that he had “diluted the matter by calling it gossip” and “abused the trust he had received” from his mother, knowing she would do anythingfor him.

Mr Justice Wide said that the offence warranted a custodial sentence but Sandra Ridgeway had led an “impeccable life” and had overcome quite a number of difficulties in her life.

Handing down a suspended sentence, Wide said took her previous good character into account along with the length of time between her arrest and today’s hearing, noting that she was arrested in February 2013, almost 17 months ago.

It can be revealed that her son was not involved in attending the incident involving the soap actor, but had learned about it from colleagues.

Sentencing her son in May, Judge Richard Marks QC told Ridgeway he had betrayed the trust reposed in him by reason of his office, by providing confidential information for money.

He said that “this sort of offending” was “far too serious to be dealt with in any other way than a sentence of immediate imprisonment”.

The judge told him: “It appears that in the aftermath of this incident, one of your colleagues said, ‘that will be in the Sun before long,’ and it was that which gave you the idea to sell the story.”

He decided to involve his mother, and to use her as a conduit to the paper.

“They were, not unnaturally, very interested in the story, and paid your mother a total of £1,600, of which she gave you half.”

One of the consequences of this publicity was that the individual in question, who was in a very vulnerable state of mind, became, as he put it, very paranoid as to who had been responsible for the information getting into the press, the judge said.

The actor also thought that the publicity and his concern surrounding it had hampered his recovery.

The second offence, in July 2009, involved the Sun running stories about the alleged sexual conduct of off-duty Lambeth police officers and a police civilian employee at the Pineapple pub in Kennington.

“It appears that you learned of this as a result of gossip around the police station. You were not yourself present at the pub when these events are alleged to have occurred, and once again you decided to pass this information to the Sun for financial gain,” said Marks.

Again he involved his mother, and as a consequence of two articles appearing in the newspaper, a total of £1,000 was paid for the information. Ridgeway confirmed to the newspaper the name of the civilian employee said to have been involved, as well as the fact that there was an internal police investigation.

The judge said Ridgeway was of previous good character, and served with the police from September 2002.

“You have lost your career and lost your good character,” the judge told him. “You effectively had two paymasters, as the prosecution put it – your employers, the Metropolitan police, and the Sun.”

There were two aggravating features – the vulnerability of the actor, and the fact that Ridgeway had involved his mother.

In mitigation, the judge said Ridgeway had been frank with the police, and had pleaded guilty. He added: “Nobody could fail to be impressed by the substantial amount of references with which I have been provided, and which speak about you in the highest possible terms.”

He sentenced Ridgeway to 12 months on count one, and three months on count two, with the sentences to be concurrent, making 12 months in all.

Ridgeway’s sentencing brings the number of officials who have been sentenced for selling stories to newspapers to 11.