Ministry of Defence senior official who pocketed £100,000 from the sale of scoops to The Sun jailed for 12 months
A senior official at the Ministry of Defence who was handed £100,000 from the sale of scoops to The Sun has been jailed for 12 months, it can now be reported.
Bettina Jordan-Barber, 42, was cultivated by Sun chief reporter John Kay as his "number one military contact", providing him with exclusive details of army disciplinary investigations, sex scandals and casualties in Afghanistan.
The 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. The details could not be reported until today, at the end of the trial of Kay, three of his Sun colleagues and another army officer and his wife.
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.
The court was told how Jordan-Barber came across confidential information in her senior Andover-based job compiling briefing notes to pass on to ministers and the Ministry of Defence press office.
After meeting Kay socially and striking up a friendship, she fed him stories before they were released to the press, very often with added details including any links to princes William and Harry.
In exchange, she received between £1,000 and £5,000 per story, which was paid in cash via a Thomas Cook money transfer.
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.
Between 2004 and 2011, Jordan-Barber, of Swindon in Wiltshire, received a total of 35 payments from the Sun totalling exactly £100,000.
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".
Mr Gibbs told the court that the money she received was incidental and she never negotiated or asked for more but the financial consequences of the case were "calamitous".
The judge reduced 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.
Jordan-Barber was close to tears as she was led from the dock, glancing up briefly to smile at supporters in the public gallery.