An ex-soldier who agreed to obtain information from an Army barracks for a newspaper has been ordered to make a donation to charity, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.
The former Army private, in her 20s, accepted a conditional caution for misconduct in a public office with the condition that she pays £40 to a charity connected with the armed services.
She was arrested in Nottinghamshire in September as part of Scotland Yard's long-running Operation Elveden inquiry into the alleged corruption of public officials.
Gregor McGill, a senior lawyer at the CPS, said: "On Friday, December 5, the CPS received a file concerning an allegation against one individual, formerly a private in the Army, of misconduct in public office.
"The evidence in this case was considered very carefully and although there was sufficient evidence to prosecute this offence, when considering the public interest it was decided that a conditional caution was an appropriate course of action.
"The individual was yesterday conditionally cautioned for an allegation that she entered into an agreement to obtain information from within Army barracks for a newspaper, the condition being that she must make a payment of £40 to a charity connected with the armed services.
"In accepting a conditional caution, an individual accepts responsibility for the offending set out."
She was the 87th person to be arrested as part of Operation Elveden.
The inquiry was originally launched in the fall-out from the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, and initially looked into inappropriate payments made to police.
Its remit has since been widened to include payments to employees of the public purse.
The operation is being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
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