LONDON -- A senior British counterterrorism police officer was jailed on Friday after becoming the first person to be convicted following a massive police investigation into alleged phone-hacking centered on Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers.

Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn, 53, was jailed for 15 months for misconduct in a public office after she was found guilty last month of offering to sell details about the phone-hacking inquiry to Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

"It was ... a corrupt attempt to make money out of sensitive and potentially very damaging information," said Justice Adrian Fulford.

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Casburn called the News of the World on Sept. 11, 2010, when police were in the early stages of examining claims that journalists from the paper had illegally accessed the voicemails of mobile phones in a bid to find stories.

Prosecutors said she phoned asking for money in an attempt to undermine the investigation because of her perception that she had been wronged and sidelined by police colleagues.

She denied asking for payment and said her intention was to raise the alarm over what she viewed as a waste of counterterrorism resources on hacking, when they should have been concentrating on preventing attacks in the run-up to the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Casburn, head of a counterterrorism financial investigations unit at the time, testified that she had been incensed by the attitude of senior officers, who regarded the hacking probe as "a bit of a jolly" and a chance to interview celebrity hacking victims such as the actress Sienna Miller.

The judge, however, said her actions could not be described as those of a whistle-blower, adding that if she were not in the process of adopting a child, he would have jailed her for three years.

"If the News of the World had accepted her offer, it's clear, in my view, that Ms Casburn would have taken the money and, as a result, she posed a significant threat to the integrity of this important police investigation," Fulford said.

Detectives are now not only investigating these allegations, but also whether journalists paid cash to public officials, including police officers, for information.

Casburn is the first person to be convicted in a scandal that escalated into a much wider crisis embroiling the top echelons of the British establishment, media, and police, and led to Murdoch closing down the News of the World in July 2011.

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Updated at 11:55 a.m. ET: LONDON -- British authorities on Tuesday charged an ex-aide to the British prime minister, a former protege of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and six others in the ever-widening phone-hacking scandal. Prosecutors accused those charged of key roles in a lengthy campaign of illegal espionage that victimized hundreds, including top celebrities Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

The announcement was a major development in a saga that has transfixed and at times horrified Britons and one that shows no signs of ending. A senior police official told The Associated Press earlier this week that her force was investigating more than 100 claims including computer hacking and illegal access to medical records stemming from the scandal.

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Prosecutors said Tuesday that Andy Coulson, Cameron's communications director for four years until 2011, and Rebekah Brooks, who oversaw Murdoch's News International, would face charges of conspiracy to intercept communications.

The alleged offenses were committed between 2000 and 2006 when both served as editor of the News of the World, the salacious Sunday tabloid that Murdoch was forced to close a year ago amid public disgust at the phone-hacking revelations.

Among the alleged victims were two former British home secretaries, former England soccer manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, Hollywood stars Jolie and Pitt, former Beatle Paul McCartney and a minor member of the royal family, Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.

Brooks and Coulson are also both accused of involvement in hacking the telephone of Milly Dowler, a missing teenage girl who was later found murdered in 2002.

Coulson: 'I will fight these allegations'
It was the revelation that News of the World journalists had hacked her phone that triggered a furor that engulfed Murdoch's News International and ultimately led to the closure of the 168-year-old tabloid.

"I am extremely disappointed by the [prosecutors'] decision today. I will fight these allegations when they eventually get to court,” Coulson said in a statement quoted by Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

"I would like to say one thing today about the Milly Dowler allegation. Anyone who knows me, or who worked with me, would know that I wouldn't, and more importantly that I didn't, do anything to damage the Milly Dowler investigation," the statement said.

Brooks sounded a defiant tone.

"I am not guilty of these charges," she said in a statement. "I did not authorize, nor was I aware of, phone hacking under my editorship.

"The charge concerning Milly Dowler is particularly upsetting not only as it is untrue but also because I have spent my journalistic career campaigning for victims of crime. I will vigorously defend these allegations," her statement said.

Others being charged are senior tabloid journalists Stuart Kuttner, Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck, James Weatherup and Ian Edmondson.

Also being charged is private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, whose extensive notes have been at the center of the scandal since it was first unearthed.

External link: Read the phone charges in full here

The maximum sentence for the phone-hacking charges is two years in prison or a fine -- or both.

'Astonishing development'
The development is particularly embarrassing for Cameron because Coulson was also charged with hacking the phones of David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, two former home secretaries from the now-opposition Labour Party. The home secretary is Britain’s top law enforcement official, roughly akin to an American attorney general.

"That is an astonishing development and I think that is almost inevitably going to rebound on Cameron," Steven Barnett, professor of communications at Westminster University, said. "That is going to pose some very, very awkward questions for the prime minister."

Alison Levitt, Principal Legal Adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions, said she had concluded there was sufficient evidence to charge the eight suspects with 19 offenses over the illegal accessing of voicemails on the cellphones belonging to politicians, celebrities and sports figures.

Former UK PM accuses Murdoch of misleading inquiry into phone-hack scandal

News International had for years denied that phone hacking was widespread after the tabloid's former royal reporter and private detective were jailed in 2007 for the crime.

Poor judgment?
Coulson resigned in the aftermath, and took up the role as director of communications of Cameron's Conservative Party, helping to shape his campaign to become prime minister.

Critics say Cameron appointed Coulson in order to secure the backing of the journalist's former boss, Murdoch, and say the appointment showed a shocking lack of judgment.

Complete UK news coverage on NBCNews.com

The involvement of Coulson and Brooks -- a close friend of Cameron’s -- turned the long-running hacking story into a national political scandal that has laid bare the collusion between senior politicians, the police and the media.

Brooks, her husband and her personal staff have already been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice over the hacking case, while Coulson has been charged in Scotland with perjury after he denied in an unrelated court case any knowledge of phone hacking.

Brooks, wooed by a string of politicians and prime ministers first in her role as editor of the News of the World and Sun tabloid, and then as the head of Murdoch's British newspaper arm News International, was one of the most powerful women in Britain, instantly recognizable by her long, curly red hair.

She was also close to Cameron, socializing with him over Christmas breaks, and both were embarrassed earlier this year when an inquiry into media ethics read out text messages sent between the two.

Rupert Murdoch not 'a fit person' to run major company, UK lawmakers say

Cameron used to sign his frequent text messages to Brooks with an affectionate "LOL", which he thought stood for "lots of love."

Damaging, but not fatal, to Cameron's political fortunes
Paul Farrelly, an opposition Labour lawmaker who questioned Rupert Murdoch and his son James as part of a parliamentary committee investigation into the hacking, said Tuesday's developments were damaging, but not fatal, for Cameron.

"My view is that what happens to Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks reflects on David Cameron's judgment in both the appointment of Coulson and in being seen to be so close to a certain newspaper empire," he said.

"Because it's been going on so long, it's in no way fatal to his premiership. What is more important to the survival of his premiership and the coalition is the economy," Farrelly added.

NBC News correspondent Duncan Golestani, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated at 11:05 a.m. ET: LONDON - Rebekah Brooks, a close confidante of Rupert Murdoch, was charged on Tuesday with interfering with a police investigation into a phone hacking scandal that has rocked the tycoon's empire and sent shockwaves through the British political establishment.

"I have concluded ... there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction," Alison Levitt, the principal legal adviser to Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions, said in a statement.  

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Brooks, 43, who quit as News International chief executive in July, faces three separate allegations of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.  If convicted she could face a prison sentence.

Also charged were Brooks' race horse trainer husband, her secretary and other staff from News International, including her driver and security officials from the British newspaper arm of Murdoch's News Corp media empire.

The news is a personal blow for Murdoch and also embarrassing for British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was close friends with Brooks, 43, and her husband, Charlie Brooks. 

The action against the woman who was one of his most trusted lieutenants comes as Murdoch faces increasing pressure in Britain. He has been forced to close one newspaper, withdraw a major takeover bid for a lucrative TV group and been described in a parliamentary committee report as someone who is not fit to run a major international company. 

She and others are accused of conspiring to "permanently ... remove seven boxes of material from the archive of News International" and to "conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment from officers of the Metropolitan Police Service," according to the CPS. 

All eyes on court as Murdoch confidante Rebekah Brooks lays bare ties to UK elite

The criminal charges are the first to be filed since police launched a new inquiry into phone hacking in Jan. 2011. Previously, two people were jailed in 2007 for hacking the phones of members of the royal household.

The offenses were all alleged to have taken place in the frantic days last July when Murdoch closed down the 168-year-old News of The World amid widespread public disgust over revelations that it had hacked the cell phone of a missing schoolgirl who was later found dead.

For a detailed look at the charges against Brooks and the hacking scandal, see coverage by NBC News' British partner ITV News

Murdoch announced his decision on July 7, 2011. Levitt said the alleged offenses took place between July 6 and July 19.

Brooks and others will all appear in court in London on June 13.

'Unprecedented posturing'
Minutes before British police announced their decision, Brooks and her husband issued a statement, saying "we deplore this weak and unjust decision."

"After the further unprecedented posturing of the (Crown Prosecution Service) we will respond later today after our return from the police station," the statement added. 

Police re-launched an investigation in January last year into claims journalists at the tabloid routinely hacked into the phones of celebrities, politicians and victims of crime to generate front page stories. 

They are also investigating whether staff hacked into computers and made illegal payments to public officials including the police to get ahead in their reporting. 

More than 160 staff are now working on one of the biggest investigations ever carried out by London police and almost 50 people have been arrested. 

Msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Two senior journalists working for Rupert Murdoch's News International have attempted suicide as pressure mounts at the scandal-hit publisher of the now-defunct News of the World, according to media reports.

The suicide attempts follow weeks of intense scrutiny of the role of The Sun, another Murdoch paper, in the phone-hacking scandal and police bribery case.

The man and the woman, who were reportedly involved in separate incidents, were rescued in time, a friend of one of them said, according to a report Tuesday on stuff.co.nz. The two journalists have been checked into the hospital, according to a report Tuesday by the Financial Times. The newspaper reported that their care is being paid for by News International.  

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"It was not a suicide pact," the friend told the New Zealand-based news organization. "The attempts were not simultaneous and there is no suggestion of a pact."

Eleven current and former staff of the Sun, Britain's best-selling daily tabloid, have been arrested this year on suspicion of bribing police or civil servants for tip-offs, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Their arrests have come as a result of information provided to the police by the Management and Standards Committee, or MSC, a body set up by parent company News Corp to facilitate police investigations and liaise with the courts.

The work of the MSC, which was set up to be independent of the conglomerate's British newspaper arm News International, has caused bitterness among staff, many of whom feel betrayed by an employer they have loyally served.

"People think that they've been thrown under a bus," one News International employee told Reuters. "They're beyond angry - there's an utter sense of betrayal, not just with the organization but with a general lynch-mob hysteria."

News International, the European arm of Murdoch's empire, is facing multiple criminal investigations and civil court cases as well as a public inquiry into press standards after long-simmering criticism of its practices came to a head last July.

Politicians once close to Murdoch, including Prime Minister David Cameron, turned their backs on him and demanded answers after the Guardian newspaper revealed the News of the World had hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

The London Evening Standard reported that other News International journalists are “terribly stressed and many are on the edge.” The company has reportedly offered psychiatric help to any journalist who wants help.  

This article includes reporting by Reuters and msnbc.com staff.

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LONDON - A British parliamentary committee on Tuesday published a sequence of emails which raised questions about the story News Corp's James Murdoch told to legislators about what he knew about phone hacking allegations involving the now-defunct News of the World and when he knew it.

In the email sequence, dated Saturday, June 7, 2008, James Murdoch was advised by Colin Myler, then News of the World editor, that the paper's legal position regarding a legal threat from professional soccer union executive Gordon Taylor was "as bad as we feared."

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Attached to this message was an email exchange between Myler and Tom Crone, the News of the World's principal in-house lawyer, in which Crone mentioned a "nightmare scenario."

The Independent newspaper on Wednesday published the email exchange between James Murdoch and Colin Myler, as well as the email exchange between Tom Crone and Colin Myler.

Crone explained that this scenario related to the fact that "several voicemails" on an email addressed to News of the World reporter Ross Hindley were "taken from" a phone used by Joanne Armstrong, a lawyer for the Professional Footballers Association union, which Taylor led.

The Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday that James Murdoch had written to British members of parliament, saying he had received the email chain over a weekend which was partly why he "did not review the full email chain at the time or afterwards."

The email sent to Hindley, which, in a reference to the News of the World's chief reporter, was headed "For Neville", is regarded by investigators and lawyers as one of the first pieces of evidence to reach the public domain demonstrating that phone hacking was a practice which extended beyond a single "rogue" journalist.

'Slipshod manager'
Executives of News International, the British newspaper publisher headed by James Murdoch at the time of the email exchange, initially claimed in public statements and testimony to parliament that phone hacking was limited to Clive Goodman, a News of the World journalist who was jailed in 2007 for hacking into the voice mails of aides to members of Britain's Royal Family.

In parliamentary testimony earlier this year, James Murdoch maintained that while he was aware of the existence of some kind of email, he was not informed in 2008 that it constituted possible evidence of widespread phone hacking by News of the World journalists other than Goodman.

• Story: James Murdoch steps down from newspaper boards

James Murdoch's handling of the phone hacking crisis has raised questions about his status as presumptive heir to his father, News Corp founder and chairman Rupert Murdoch.

Chris Bryant, a member of parliament for Britain's Labour Party who was a target of phone hacking, told Reuters on Tuesday that at a minimum, the email sequence newly published by the committee "says to me that James Murdoch is a remarkably slipshod manager .... He's been slipshod and News International have been slippery."

In a letter also made public by the parliamentary committee on Tuesday, James Murdoch told the panel "I was not aware of evidence that either pointed to widespread wrongdoing or indicated that further investigation was necessary." Nonetheless, he said he wished to "apologize" that this material had "only now come to light" in a late stage of the Parliamentary inquiry.

Tom Watson, another Labour Party member of parliament and a leading member of the Media Select Committee, was skeptical, the Independent reported, saying, "How can the company have just found this important email trail?"

• Official site of the Leveson Inquiry on media ethics

The Culture, Media and Sport committee is scheduled to publish a report on its phone hacking investigation sometime in the next few months.

A spokesperson for News International said the company had no comment beyond the statements made by James Murdoch in his latest letter to the Parliamentary committee.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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