The first person to be prosecuted as part of the investigation into payments by journalists to officials has been sentenced to 15 months in prison.
Det Ch Insp April Casburn, 53, from Essex, was convicted last month of misconduct in public office.
She had called the News of the World, offering to sell information to the paper, after the inquiry into hacking by the tabloid reopened in 2010.
The sentencing judge called it "a corrupt attempt to make money".
The Metropolitan Police said it was "a great disappointment that a detective chief inspector in the counter terrorism command should have abused her position in this way".
Casburn had said she contacted the paper out of public interest, but Mr Justice Fulford said her offence could not be described as whistle-blowing.
She spoke to journalist Tim Wood about the fresh investigation into phone hacking and claimed she did so because she was concerned about counter-terror resources being wasted on the phone-hacking inquiry, which her colleagues saw as "a bit of a jolly".
April Casburn goes to prison as the first person convicted as part of Operation Elveden.
During mitigation, her barrister argued that the exceptional nature of her offence - one 'mad telephone call' - should not lead to a precedent-setting sentence which would affect any future convictions relating to corrupt relationships between police and journalists.
But Mr Justice Fulford made clear she had no excuse for her actions - it was a straightforward and troubling case of corruption.
This was the key factor. He assessed that her actions had damaged the public's trust in the police and potentially damaged the integrity of a new investigation. There was, in his view, no defence of whistle-blowing - of speaking out in the public interest. And that's why he concluded that the public interest would be in jailing the disgraced detective.
The detective denied asking for money, but Mr Wood had made a note that she "wanted to sell inside information".
The newspaper did not print a story after the call and no money changed hands.
The judge, in his sentencing remarks, said Mr Wood was "a reliable, honest and disinterested witness" who had "absolutely no reason to lie".
"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," he said.
He told her it was "a corrupt attempt to make money out of sensitive and potentially very damaging information".
Mr Justice Fulford went on: "Activity of this kind is deeply damaging to the administration of criminal justice in this country. It corrodes the public's faith in the police force, it can lead to the acquittal or the failure by the authorities to prosecute individuals who have committed offences whether they are serious or otherwise."
Casburn is in the process of adopting a child, and the judge said had that not been the case she would have been sentenced to three years.
The judge said he was particularly concerned about the child, and admitted that her absence while she is in prison could be damaging.
However, he said that, had she not been arrested, the detective would have returned to work by now, and therefore the child would be cared for by others anyway.
The Sunday tabloid was closed down in 2011 amid outrage over its hacking into voicemails.
'Unhappy at work'The offence happened in September 2010 when Casburn, from Hatfield Peverel, was managing the national terrorist financial investigation unit.
Ahead of sentencing, Casburn's defence team told the judge her only offence was "being very unhappy at work and making a mad telephone call" to the News of the World.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: "We hope that the 15-month prison sentence handed down to this officer sends a strong message that the leaking of confidential information for personal gain is absolutely unacceptable and will not be tolerated."
It said she had "betrayed the service and let down her colleagues", adding that there was "no place for corrupt officers or staff" in its police force.
Her arrest was one of 59 that have been made as part of the ongoing Operation Elveden investigation.
Operation Elveden is running alongside the Operation Weeting inquiry into phone hacking, and Operation Tuleta into allegations that computers were hacked to obtain private information.
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