Chris Huhne speeding affair: Huhne and ex-wife ignore one another in court

By TIM CORNWELL
Published on Friday 17 February 2012 00:00

IT DIDN’T need a body language expert to interpret the glacial relationship between former energy secretary Chris Huhne and his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, as they sat side-by-side in court yesterday.

Huhne shifted in the dock at Westminster magistrates court so that his back was to Pryce. She stared straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with her former husband. The pair, in court for a ten-minute hearing, arrived and left separately. They did not speak.

Huhne and Pryce were making their first court appearance after being charged with perverting the course of justice last month.

It is alleged that in 2003, Huhne persuaded his then wife to take three penalty points that should have been placed on his driving licence after he was caught by a speed camera between Stansted airport and the couple’s London home.

Seven years later, when Huhne learned that the News of the World was planning to write about his affair with Carina Trimingham, a public relations adviser, he broke the news to his wife, who filed for divorce within a week. Relations have reportedly been strained since.

Yesterday, the couple were reunited in circumstances neither could have wanted.

Huhne, dressed in a dark suit and patterned tie, listened intently as the charge against him was read to the court.

Pryce, an eminent economist and his wife of 26 years, sat apart from her ex-husband in a cropped beige jacket and black high-heeled shoes. The pair continued to face away from each other as the charges were read. They spoke only to confirm their names, dates of birth and addresses.

The case came to light after a newspaper interviewer asked Pryce about weeks of rumours that Huhne had persuaded someone else to take the points after her husband’s car was caught by a speed camera.

“Yes, he did,” she said, adding that “he does drive a bit like a maniac”. She regards herself, friends have said, as an “utterly wronged” woman who held her busy career together after the painful public split. But she may not have imagined that the revelation would launch an eight-month police investigation leaving both she and her ex-husband facing serious criminal charges.

A former contender for the leadership of his party, the MP quit his job as a cabinet minister earlier this month after it was announced he would face a criminal charge, saying he would stand down in order to fight to clear his name.

Legal adviser James McDermott told the pair: “The charges upon which you will stand trial at Southwark Crown Court are slightly different so I will put them to you both.”

Turning first to Pryce, 59, of Clapham, south London, he said: “During the course of an investigation into an offence of driving a vehicle in excess of the speed limit on March 12, 2003, [you] falsely informed the investigating authorities that you had been the driver of the said vehicle, thereby enabling yourself to falsely admit responsibility for the said offence, causing your licence to be endorsed with three penalty points.”

Huhne, 57, who remains the MP for his hometown of Eastleigh in Hampshire, was told he faced a similar count for allegedly informing the authorities that his Greek ex-wife had been behind the wheel.

The two were granted unconditional bail until they return to crown court on 2 March. Perverting the course of justice carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

At the 2011 Lib Dem conference, Mr Huhne spoke of being “enormously regretful” about the impact on his family, and he appeared to be emerging once again as a leading contender for his party’s leadership. Publicly he welcomed the police investigation, but claims emerged of a recording in which he urged Pryce not to talk publicly about the incident.

The couple’s five children have reportedly rallied to her side, breaking off contact with Huhne, a former financial journalist who made a fortune in the city, because of the way the marriage ended.

The shock was greater, friends have said, because Ms Trimingham was regarded as a family friend.

Comments

There are 15 comments to this article

Order by:

• Newest first
• |
• Oldest first

Page 1 of 1

• 1
• Show all

15

bifter

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 02:46 PM

#13 I respect your POV :-)

• Report Unsuitable

14

JCA REID

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 12:37 PM

It's always the same with these MP's etc. They all know where their homes are & secondly they know where their cars is are. But when the Police come aknocking & want to know who was driving it at such & such a time,, all of a sudden.....it's collective amnesia. These folk in High Office should literally be crucified for their Machiavellian machinations in their attempts at ducking & dodging of the issue! Front up & take it on the chin! This matter has dragged on for 8years & don't talk about seeking justicetruth etc.

• Report Unsuitable

13

Alternative (High Octane) Fuel Head

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 12:30 PM

#12: I know that this is the perversion of the course of justice, and I agree that people in Hulne's position should set an example. However, that said, if important laws regarding human rights had not been sidestepped to enable speed cameras to function, then people wouldn't be tempted to commit this serious offence in order to retain their licence. I have a feeling that this kind of thing is probably far more widespread than we think it is. Faced with the prospect of loosing a licence and possibly a job, it is very tempting to slope the points off onto a willing party and I expect it happens regularly........................Speed cameras have turned intelligent enforcement of laws intended to regulate the worst cases of bad driving into a government sponsored cash cow that sidesteps fundamental rights...........S172 RTA was not designed to be used to force people to confess to speeding. It was designed to give the police powers to deal with far more serious offences where quickly identifying the driver could mean a matter of life and death. ................. The temptation to pervert the course of justice should not be put in the way of people accused of going a few miles an hour over an artificially low speed limit. That is what is fundamentally wrong in this case.

• Report Unsuitable

12

bifter

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 12:09 PM

#11 Whatever your views on speed cameras (which we likely share) the perversion of the course of justice is a rightly serious offence, no one should be able to cock a snook at the wigs, least of all someone who enacts law himself. Huhne should be a paragon, if he sticks to his guns and is found to be lying, the penalty should be doubly severe. However, as we all know, there are written laws for the little people and unspoken laws for the wealthy and powerful. We'll see!

• Report Unsuitable

11

Alternative (High Octane) Fuel Head

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 11:53 AM

Of course, if speed cameras didn't exist then this wouldn't have happened. I frankly find it astounding that it is possible to find yourself in court on serios charges for failing to confess to a mere speeding offence. Something is very, very wrong with this country. They are so desparate to ensure that their dispicable speed camera system earns money that the authorities are prepared to stoop to any depths to ensure that not only the right to silence is sidestepped but also pursue trumped-up charges in respect of their lack of observance of the basic right to silence.

• Report Unsuitable

10

bifter

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 11:16 AM

Ah, the hubris Huhne has shown may come back to haunt him, how delicious! Shall he, I wonder, wield the 'sword of truth?' Careful Chris, you might impale yourself! PS #7 Who made you the arbiter metaphoris? While I agree the general standard of prose in these pages is poor (being euphemistic) I think the allusion in this case is valid.

• Report Unsuitable

9

ItsTime

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 09:55 AM

#8 You idiot. The case is only comignto court now becuase his wife changed her story after they diviorced! So might say she is behaving vindictively.

• Report Unsuitable

8

george19

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 07:07 AM

Why the delay if my wife and I had been found to having done this it certainly wouldnt have taken the law as long as this to convict the pair of us.

• Report Unsuitable

7

Tom Donnelly

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 06:32 AM

1. It's "one another" not "one other". 2. 'Glacial' is a metaphor for 'slow'. Perhaps you meant 'frosty'?

• Report Unsuitable

6

Charles Linskaill

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 02:19 AM

So Tragic it is!, When you cause a situation which will eventually ask for your 'Repentance', And heads hang in shame.

• Report Unsuitable

5

Kinghob

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 01:58 AM

It wow himher wot did it yer honour! That is as big as this story gets and it lacks importance.

• Report Unsuitable

4

Charles Linskaill

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 12:44 AM

Thinking your above the Law is never a good idea, It was bound to end in tears with stern faces.

• Report Unsuitable

3

Rugal

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 12:42 AM

Good day to highlight good news.

• Report Unsuitable

2

Charles Linskaill

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 12:41 AM

Thinking your above the Law is never a good idea, It was bound to end in tears with stern faces.

• Report Unsuitable

1

The Shitesman

Friday, February 17, 2012 at 12:22 AM

Other than Huhne typifying the kind of two-faced hypocritical LibDem liar we've come to know and detest, who cares ?

• Report Unsuitable

Order by:

• Newest first
• |
• Oldest first

Page 1 of 1

• 1
• Show all

Logged in as:

Comment here. Start typing your comment here:

Post comment

Please adhere to our Community guidelines

Your view

Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.