Three Public Officials Jailed For Selling Information To The Sun

* Former officials guilty of passing information to papers

* Four now convicted since launch of phone-hacking inquiry

By Michael Holden

LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - Two former policemen and an ex-prison officer were jailed on Wednesday for selling stories to Rupert Murdoch's tabloid the Sun, Britain's top-selling newspaper.

The three men were convicted as part of a wide-ranging police investigation begun two years ago into claims journalists from Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World newspaper had hacked into mobile phone voicemail messages.

That inquiry has led to dozens of arrests of current and former staff at News International, the British newspaper arm of Murdoch's News Corp., and has been widened to examine claims of illegal payments to public officials.

The long-running scandal forced the closure of the News of the World and has called into question the judgment of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was friends with several of Murdoch's senior executives.

Richard Trunkfield, 31, who worked at a high-security prison in central England, gave information to the Sun about Jon Venables, who was aged 10 when he and another child killed a toddler in 1993 in one of the most infamous murders in Britain in recent times.

The prison officer, who had contact with a Sun journalist between 10 and 15 times, receiving 3,500 pounds ($5,300)in the process, was handed a 16-month jail sentence at London's Southwark Crown Court.

"It is most assuredly not for individual prison officers to take it upon themselves to contact the press to reveal information about a defendant in circumstances such as those before the court today, still less to enrich themselves in the process," said the judge, Justice Adrian Fulford.

Alan Tierney, 40, an ex-police constable based in Surrey to the south of London, was paid 1,250 pounds for details of the arrest of former England soccer captain John Terry's mother on suspicion of shoplifting, and the arrest of Rolling Stones star Ronnie Wood, who was held on suspicion of beating up his lover.

Tierney was jailed for 10 months while a second former police officer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to two years in prison. All three men had pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office.

Last month, April Casburn, 53, a senior British counter-terrorism police officer, became the first person to be convicted and jailed by detectives looking into the phone-hacking claims and other related offences.

Rebekah Brooks, the former head of News International and a close confidante of Murdoch, and Cameron's former media chief Andy Coulson, are among those who have also been charged with crimes relating to the inquiries.

They are due to go on trial later this year.

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Kenneth Miller, Mennonite Pastor, Jailed For Refusing To Testify In 'Lesbian' Custody Case

A pastor at the center of a dramatic and acrimonious custody and kidnapping case has been jailed for refusing to testify in court.

Kenneth Miller, a 47-year-old Mennonite pastor, told U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions on Thursday that he could not answer questions from a grand jury regarding the flight of Lisa Miller and her daughter to Nicaragua to avoid a custody transfer, reports the Associated Press. Lisa Miller (who is not related to Kenneth Miller) took the child overseas in 2009 so she would not have to comply with a court order allowing her former lesbian partner, Janet Jenkins, to see their daughter, reports NBC News.

In August, Kenneth Miller was convicted of helping the mother flee the country. His sentencing begins in March, and he faces a maximum jail time of three years.

The pastor apologized to the court on Thursday and said his "religious beliefs" prevented him from testifying, according to the AP. Miller said that he, and possibly others who may or may not have helped Lisa Miller violate the custody order, were motivated by their conviction in "God's Law," the AP reports.

The reluctant judge replied that while he appreciated the pastor's "faithfulness to your religion and your moral beliefs," the criminal justice system could not function without the grand jury, according to the AP.

The Beachy Amish Mennonites, the Protestant splinter sect that Kenneth Miller belongs to, believes that same-sex marriage is a sin. The group has about 13,000 members worldwide.

The root of the custody dispute and ensuing kidnapping dates back to 2002, when Lisa Miller gave birth to daughter Isabella. At the time, she was still together with her partner Janet, reports NBC News; but the couple was divorced two years later. Some time after that, Miller became a born-again Christian, renounced homosexuality and stopped allowing Jenkins to see Isabella.

The battle between Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins, as well as the trial of Kenneth Miller has snowballed into a widely publicized debate that pits religious conservatives against LGBT advocates. In August, conservative firebrand Bryan Fischer, who has grabbed headlines in the past for inflammatory comments about Newtown and the LGBT community, said Lisa Miller had a responsibility "to obey God rather than man" and kidnap her daughter, reports Right Wing Watch.

Jenkins has also filed a civil suit in which she alleges that Miller, Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and the Lynchburg-based Thomas Road Baptist Church all conspired to help conceal the whereabouts of her daughter. The suit is asking for unspecified monetary damages.

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