Former minister jailed for deception
Huhne’s ex-wife Vicky Pryce, a prominent econ-omist, was also jailed for eight months for her role in the deception.
Prior to the scandal, Huhne, aged 58, had been seen as a potential leader of the Liberal Democrats, junior partners of the Conservatives in the ruling coalition government.
The pair falsely informed police that Pryce was driving Huhne’s car when it was caught by a speedcamera, so that he could avoid a driving ban.
The incident remained a family secret for years but came back to haunt Huhne after he left Pryce for his mistress, Carina Trimingham, in 2010. Pryce told two newspapers about the 2003 deception in an act of revenge that landed both Huhne and herself in the dock.
The estranged pair sat side-by-side in the glass-walled dock during the lengthy sentencing hearing, but did not make eye contact. Trimingham sat in the public gallery.
“Any element of tragedy is entirely your own fault,” Judge Nigel Sweeney told them. “You have fallen from a great height.”
He told Pryce she had been driven by an “implacable desire for revenge”.
Huhne resigned as energy secretary in Feb 2012, when he and Pryce were both charged with perverting the course of justice. He spent the best part of a year fighting a costly legal battle to get the charge against him thrown out.
That attempt failed when Judge Sweeney ruled at the end of January that Huhne should face trial. Huhne initially pleaded not guilty, but a week later, on the morning the trial was due to start, he stunned Britain by changing his plea to guilty.
Pryce, aged 60, pleaded not guilty. She admitted taking Huhne’s speeding penalty but put forward an archaic defence of “marital coercion”, arguing that Huhne bullied her into it.
A first jury failed to agree on a verdict on Pryce, but after a retrial a second jury convicted her last Thursday.
Pryce’s trial revealed how, after Huhne left her, she spent six months plotting with journalists to try and get the story of the 2003 speeding deception into the papers in a way that would damage Huhne without exposing her.
“I definitely want to nail him,” Pryce wrote to one journalist in a Mar 2011 email read out in court.
Sentencing them, trial judge Mr Justice Sweeney said Huhne had lied “again and again”.
He told Pryce she had a “controlling, manipulative, and devious side”.
And he told the former couple: “To the extent that anything good has come out of this whole process, it is that now, finally, you have both been brought to justice for your joint offence.”
The former couple sat 4ft apart in the dock as the judge handed down their sentences.
He told Huhne he was somewhat more culpable for the offence.
“You have fallen from a great height, albeit that that is only modest mitigation given that it is a height that you would never have achieved if you had not hidden your commission of such a serious offence in the first place,” he said.
He told the former MP he had committed a “flagrant offence” of its type and said there were no exceptional circumstances.
Turning to Pryce, he told the economist she had been readily persuaded into taking points for her then-husband.
The Crown Prosecution Service is seeking to recover costs from both Huhne and Pryce, and the issue has been adjourned to a hearing at a later date.
The offence dates back to exactly a decade ago today — when Huhne’s black BMW was clocked speeding on the way back from Stansted Airport as the then-MEP travelled home from Strasbourg. With nine points on his licence, he avoided a ban by asking Pryce to take the points.
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