The MP, his wife and his lover – revenge gone wrong

On March 12, 2013, Chris Huhne, now 58, but then a young and ambitious Member of the European Parliament, broke the speed limit on the M11 motorway in his BMW. He had nine penalty points on his licence already and three more would have meant a driving ban.

The nation has been riveted for weeks by a tale of anger, criminality, infidelity and revenge involving a high-powered politician, his wife and his lover. It ended last week with two of them behind bars.

On March 12, 2013, Chris Huhne, now 58, but then a young and ambitious Member of the European Parliament, broke the speed limit on the M11 motorway in his BMW. He had nine penalty points on his licence already and three more would have meant a driving ban.

The offence had been spotted on a speed camera and the routine police letter asked for the name of the driver. The reply named Vicky Pryce, Huhne’s wife, and the points were loaded onto her licence.

Eventually, Huhne became a Liberal Democrat MP and a Minister in Britain and nobody would have known about the points fraud until his 26-year marriage started going wrong. When newspapers reported he was having an affair with Carina Trimingham, his PR adviser, Huhne turned up at the family home, told his wife it was true and he needed 20 minutes to write a Press statement saying they were separating.
Ms Pryce, aged 60, born in Greece and described as a brilliant economist, said she was in a terrible state and suicidal. She decided to go to the newspapers so as to destroy her husband. In an email to a reporter, she said, “I want to nail him more than ever. And I would love to do it soon.”

It turned out to be the worst decision of her life.
The story of the traffic points emerged in February 2012 and both Huhne and Pryce were charged with perverting the course of justice. Huhne, by then a powerful minister in the ruling coalition, resigned and over a year mounted a series of expensive legal challenges to have the case thrown out.

Painful texts were revealed between Huhne and his son, Peter. “We all know you were driving and put pressure on Mum,” Peter texted. “Accept it or face the consequences. Or will this be another lie?”
Huhne replied, “I have no intention of sending Mum, to Holloway (prison) for three months.”

Peter: “Are you going to accept your responsibility or do I have to contact the police and tell them what you told me?”
Huhne: “Discuss it with Mum.”

When the case came to court on January 28, both Huhne and Pryce pleaded not guilty but a week later, Huhne changed his mind and confessed to the crime, knowing full well that he now faced prison.
Ms Pryce defended her actions on grounds of marital coercion, claiming that Huhne had bullied her into taking the points. She said, “I found him standing by the hallway table with the form and pen in hand. He said. ‘You must sign this now,’ He had filled in my name.” She thought if she signed, it would preserve their marriage, “or he would have blamed me forever.”

Ms Pryce’s trial ended prematurely when the judge decided the jurors had not understood the implications. At the retrial, Ms Pryce repeated her allegations but conceded she had been mostly motivated by revenge over her husband’s affair.

A jury of seven men and five women unanimously found Ms Pryce guilty of perverting justice and a newspaper headlined its story “The Pryce of Revenge.”

Last Monday at Southwark Crown Court, Mr Justice Sweeney jailed Huhne and Pryce for eight months each. He described Pryce as “cunning, manipulative and devious,” and said Huhne had “lied and lied again.” Addressing them both, he said, “If there is any element of tragedy here, it is entirely your own fault.”

Huhne’s sentence would have been nine months but it was reduced to eight in light of his guilty plea. Justice sources said the two could expect to be freed after four months.

But Huhne may then face further litigation. The Crown Prosecution Service said it would seek £31,000 (about Shs106.2m) from him as reimbursement for costs incurred in his persistent attempts to have the case dismissed after the initial charge.
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A priest was being honoured at his retirement dinner after 25 years in the parish. A local politician was to make the presentation but he was delayed, so the priest said a few words of his own as they waited.

“I got a terrible impression of the parish from the first confession I heard here – a man who stole a TV set, lied his way out of it, embezzled from his employer, had an affair with his boss’s wife, took drugs… I was appalled.”

But the priest said as time went on, he realised not everybody was like that and he had come to a fine parish full of loving people.
Just as the priest finished, the politician arrived full of apologies and spoke. “I’ll never forget when our parish priest arrived,” he said. “In fact, I had the honour of being the first person to go to him for confession.”