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Vicky Pryce convicted over Chris Huhne speeding points switch Vicky Pryce convicted over Chris Huhne speeding points switch
(about 3 hours later)
Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of the disgraced cabinet minister Chris Huhne, has been found guilty of perverting the course of justice by taking his speeding points a decade ago. The case raised questions about what the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, knew of the scandal before it was made public. Vicky Pryce, a leading economist, and her ex-husband, the disgraced former cabinet minister Chris Huhne, both now face jail sentences after a jurycondemned her as a liar and convicted her of perverting the course of justice on Thursday.
A jury rejected Pryce's claims she had been "pressurised" by the former energy secretary to take the points. The verdict followed two trials which laid bare details of the couple's bitter marriage breakup, his infidelity, and her mission to destroy him thereafter through the press. Pryce, 60, looked shocked and her jaw dropped as a jury rejected her defence of "marital coercion" and unanimously found her guilty of taking her former husband's speeding points 10 years ago.
Pryce's solicitor, Robert Brown, made a statement on her behalf outside the court. The former joint head of the government economic service, who had nurtured political ambitions of her own with hopes of joining the Bank of England monetary policy committee and even the House of Lords, left court with her reputation in tatters. Despite her standing as a high-earning economist, who advised on the state of nations, Pryce chose to fight the case at Southwark crown court in London. Using her status as wife, she had claimed the archaic defence of marital coercion, maintaining Huhne, 58, then an MEP, had "pressurised" her into taking his points at the time as he was facing a driving ban.
He said: "Mrs Pryce is naturally very disappointed to have been convicted. She would like to thank all those who have supported her during this difficult process, particularly her children, her friends and colleagues. But the jury of seven men and five women rejected that after about 12 hours of deliberations, deciding Pryce had a real choice when she signed a form saying she was driving his black BMW, H11HNE, when it was clocked on the M11 on 12 March 2003.
"Mrs Pryce will return to court to be sentenced in due course. Huhne, the former energy secretary, pleaded guilty at the beginning of his trial on 4 February and resigned as MP for Eastleigh.
"No further comment will be made until this is completed." As her trial closed, senior Liberal Democrats quickly moved to distance themselves from Pryce, once a member of the party's elite, as her case raised questions over what deputy prime minister Nick Clegg knew of the scandal before it exploded in the press.
As Pryce, 60, a one-time senior government economist, and Huhne both now face the prospect of prison sentences, there are questions about what the Liberal Democrat leader knew of the cloud hanging over the former MP before it was exposed by the Sunday Times in May 2011. In emails between her and the Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott and which can only now be reported, Pryce claimed to have told what had happened to Clegg's wife, Miriam González Durántez, the business secretary Vince Cable, the senior Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott, who is a distant relative of Isabel Oakeshott, as well as "others working close to Clegg".
It can now be revealed that Pryce claimed to have confided to both Clegg's wife, Miriam González Durántez, and the business secretary, Vince Cable, as well as "others working close to" Clegg, that a scandal was about to engulf Huhne before it exploded in the press. In one email, Pryce said she had told Cable, and his wife Rachel, over supper. "They were horrified at the time but VC has probably forgotten it by now. He was v tired that night," Pryce wrote.
In emails put before both juries, which can now be reported in full, Pryce claimed to the Sunday Times political editor, Isabel Oakeshott, with whom she was working to get the points story "out there", that she had told senior party members that a damaging story about Huhne was brewing. Pryce's claims prompted vehement denials from the party, still reeling in the wake of the Lord Rennard scandal, in which Clegg has faced questions over what he knew of the allegations made by women of predatory behaviour by the party's former chief executive before it became public.
In one, on 12 March 2011 – two months before the story broke – Pryce wrote: "Other possibility would be to tell NC [Clegg] or his close associates (having coffee with Miriam this PM) that the papers are on to him [Huhne] … (that also might have the added benefit of NC not wanting any more scandals and ease him out anyway ...)." Oakeshott advised against it, worried that the move could backfire. On Pryce's claims, a spokesman for Cable said: "Vince and Rachel have no recollection of the issue of points being raised with them over the course of dinner with Vicky Pryce on 28 January 2011. They have consulted their personal records which confirm that the issue first came to their attention in May 2011 when the story broke."
In another email, on 9 April 2011 Pryce admitted: "Actually I had told Vince [Cable] and Rachel [his wife] about points before when the three of us were having supper about a month ago – they were horrified at the time but VC has probably forgotten it by now. He was v tired that night." Sources close to Clegg said Pryce did mention to González as an aside at a business lunch with other people that Huhne had behaved very badly, but González did not enquire further because she assumed Pryce was referring to the events in their personal lives.
On 18 April 2011, she informed Oakeshott: "Having lunch with Miriam c tmr. Should I hint at anything? I told Vince there is something hanging over him [Huhne] and he wanted to tell Clegg." González added: "I have never ever been told by Vicky or anybody else about the traffic points story. I got to know about this when everybody else did."
On 26 April 2011, Oakeshott asked Pryce: "To what extent is Clegg aware that something is hanging over Huhne (you mentioned it to Miriam, didn't you?)"
Pryce replied: "Yes, I have told VC, Miriam C, MOak … and a few other Lib Dem Lords and others working close to NC." MOak is Lord Oakeshott, a senior Liberal Democrat politician and a third cousin of the Sunday Times political editor.
But a spokeswoman for Vince Cable said on Thursday: "Vince and Rachel have no recollection of the issue of points being raised with them over the course of dinner with Vicky Pryce on 28 January 2011.
"They have consulted their personal records which confirm that the issue first came to their attention in May 2011 when the story broke in the press."
Sources close to Clegg added that Pryce did mention to González as an aside at a business lunch with other people that Huhne had behaved very badly, but González did not enquire further because she assumed Pryce was referring to the events in their personal lives. González added: "I have never ever been told by Vicky or anybody else about the traffic points story. I got to know about this when everybody else did."
Lord Oakeshott said: "Vicky must have been under a lot of pressure, but I am sure she never raised the points with me."Lord Oakeshott said: "Vicky must have been under a lot of pressure, but I am sure she never raised the points with me."
Huhne denied the points story when it was published, and clung to his cabinet post for almost a year – only stepping down after being charged in February 2012. As Pryce was released on bail, judge Mr Justice Sweeney, warned: "Obviously Ms Pryce was present when I indicated to Mr Huhne the inevitable consequences of a conviction for an offence of this sort. She must be under no illusions that my granting of bail indicates any watering down of that provisional approach."
Pryce had pleaded not guilty using the archaic defence of marital coercion, available only to wives, claiming Huhne had so pressurised her into taking his speeding points that her own free will was "overborne", leaving her with no real choice. According to Crown Prosecution Service guidelines, the usual range of sentence is between four and 36 months, with "the degree of persistence" involved and the "seriousness of the substantive offence" taken into account.
But the jury of seven men and five women sitting at Southwark crown court rejected that defence and returned a guilty verdict. Outside the court, Pryce stood impassively for photographers as her solicitor, Robert Brown, said: "Mrs Pryce is naturally very disappointed to have been convicted. She would like to thank all those who have supported her during this difficult process, particularly her children, her friends and colleagues.
They believed the high-flying former civil servant had a real choice when she signed an official form saying she was the driver of his black BMW – with personalised number plate H11HNE – as it was clocked speeding on the M11 at Chigwell at 11.23pm on 12 March 2003. Huhne was driving from Stansted airport to his home in Clapham, south London, after a European parliamentary session at Strasbourg. "Mrs Pryce will return to court to be sentenced in due course. No further comment will be made until this is completed".
It was not disputed that Pryce took Huhne's points. The question for the jury was whether she had been coerced into it, and it was for the prosecution to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that she was not. Pryce, a mother of five and a grandmother, was forced to stand trial twice, when a first jury was discharged having failed to reach a verdict. The two trials over five weeks laid bare her desperate mission to destroy her former husband in the press in revenge for him leaving her for his PR adviser Carina Trimingham, 46, who was then in a civil partnership.
The speeding allegations surfaced in 2011 after Huhne left Pryce, ending their 26-year-marriage, when his affair with the PR adviser Carina Trimingham, 46, who was then in a civil partnership, was exposed in June 2010. She was helped by her friend, the prominent black female barrister and part-time judge, Constance Briscoe, 55, who may face charges over her involvement in the case. Briscoe, said to have been aware in 2003 that Pryce took Huhne's points, was dropped by the prosecution as a "witness of truth" and has been arrested after allegedly lying to police by claiming to have had no dealings with newspapers over the speeding story. Emails discovered later appeared to show she was in contact with the Mail on Sunday.
The prosecution claimed that shortly after the split, Pryce, who they portrayed as driven by revenge, gave newspapers details of the points switch to destroy his career. She first approached the Mail on Sunday, and was helped in her dealings with the newspaper by her friend Constance Briscoe, a barrister and part-time judge, the prosecution claimed. The jury heard Pryce embarked on a six-month campaign to "bring down" Huhne and "nail" him after his humiliating infidelity by trying to get the points story into the press without exposing herself to prosecution.
The jury were told Briscoe, 55, had been dropped as a "witness of truth" by the prosecution and arrested after allegedly lying in a police statement in which she denied having any contact with newspapers over the speeding allegations story. She is currently under police investigation. The trigger was her anger at being treated as a "scorned wife" in press briefings instigated, she believed, by Trimingham, when she attended the Lib Dem conference in September 2010.
Pryce later went to the Sunday Times, who published the story in May 2011. Two months later, she and Briscoe were in contact with the Mail on Sunday, trying to "peddle a false story" that one of Huhne's constituency aides had taken his points, which was untrue and was not published. Pryce later went to the Sunday Times. In an effort to incriminate Huhne, but spare herself from prosecution, she secretly taped telephone conversations with Huhne, trying to goad him into admission. She had confidentialty agreements with both Sunday newspapers to protect her as a source.
Pryce had claimed Huhne was a "very ambitious", "very driven" and "overbearing" man, whose priority was politics, and who forced her to take his points because being disqualified from driving would cost him the Liberal Democrat nomination for Eastleigh, the seat he was then "nursing" and eventually won in 2005. Huhne had changed his plea to guilty on the first day of what was originally to have been the former couple's joint trial. The one-time Liberal Democrat leader hopeful, who is a multimillionaire with a property portfolio, now faces hefty court costs. The court hearings for both parties are estimated to have cost up to £200,000.
She said she had initially told him "a resounding no" and thought it "morally repugnant". She claimed Huhne had already given her name to authorities as nominated driver, and stood over her "pen in hand", forcing her to sign a form saying she was the driver. Malcolm McHaffie, of the Crown Prosecution Service said: "Chris Huhne made sustained challenges against the prosecution before pleading guilty at the last minute. This was expensive for the CPS and we will be applying for costs."
She said she had been presented with a "fait accompli" and was "worn down" by Huhne's "increasingly abusive" bullying over the matter, and feared the consequences if she refused.