Vicky Pryce is guilty

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I can imagine that Vicky Pryce isn't friends with the journalist anymore.

I know what you're saying about how she didn't owe Pryce anything and was just getting a story. Which is fair enough, it's what journalists do. But how stupid of Pryce to fall for it nod not realise that this is what was happening. It does smack of arrogance on Pryces part, that she thought shed get away with it.

Juggling, the form comes only to the registered owner. So on mine where my son had been driving and went down a one way (it is a local trap which makes a fortune for the Council every year, badly signed) I was the only one who had to sign to return it saying yes my car but my son was driving and here is his name. Then they sent a second form to the person who was driving later once the owner has set out the position.

Today Huhne and his live in lover PR girl Ms Trumpington seem to be briefly the media to suggest the marriage was dead for years, separate rooms, abortion pressure invented and that the texts show what a loving father Huhne is (yuck,...) The suggestion that Pryce should have been getting out champagne when she was told Huhne was leaving her just as he left for the gym is ridiculous. Even if you are not in a great marriage if you find your other half is leaving and with another lover and you have children with them of course you aren't delighted. Anyway I am sure Huhne's lawyers will use all this in their mitigation attempts tomorrow.

It will be interesting to see how has the longer sentence. In my view it should be Huhne as he filled in the form and presented the fait accompli - sign here or my career is over and he was the one speeding, not her and he didn't even learn his lesson - he sped a few months later and lost his licence.

Thanks for the link to the pre-trial burden of proof discussion hackmum.

Regarding the speculation of why VP thought she would "get away with it", I do wander when she was aware that:

1. Her lawyers would be able to successfully argue for the burden of proof in marital coercion to be changed to beyond reasonable doubt on the prosecution

1. Huhne wouldn't give evidence.

These 2 factors strengthened her defence case very very significantly.
It seems entirely rational to contend the charge, and from a technical standpoint it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how the prosecution has disproved beyond a reasonable doubt her marital coercion defence. Afterall it's her word against .... no-ones!

Basically the jury have flatly called her a liar and that is going to bite her in the arse big style at sentencing.

Maybe if her lawyers hadn't been successful at changing the burden of proof pre-trial, she would have plead guilty ... who knows.

I would assume CH would be considered the 'more guilty' party even though both have been found guilty of the same crime.

We've only got VP's word that she was presented with the form in that way but other facts are not subjective - he committed the driving offence, he was the registered keeper, he received the form so ultimately his responsibility to fill it in truthfully.

I am surprised there isn't a lesser charge that could have been applied to VP - Accessory to Perverting the Course of Justice or similar?

cumfy: those are interesting questions. I remember the case was delayed for about two weeks as a result of lawyers making pre-trial representations to the judge, so I guess that would be when the judge decided to place the burden of proof with the prosecution - in other words, just before the start of the trial. From what I understand, Huhne's lawyers were also trying to get the case dismissed during that time, but I suspect once he realised that he would have to stand trial and that they had very strong evidence he wasn't driving the car, at that point he decided to plead guilty. I imagine it was only when he pleaded guilty that Pryce and her lawyers realised that he wouldn't be giving evidence against her.

If he hadn't pleaded guilty, would they both have been tried together? I guess they would. It would have been terribly complicated, with him saying he didn't do it, and her saying, yes, he did it, AND he made me do it. It amazes me that she would have been prepared to go ahead with something that would probably have been even more humiliating than the trial she went through alone.

cumfy: "It seems entirely rational to contend the charge, and from a technical standpoint it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how the prosecution has disproved beyond a reasonable doubt her marital coercion defence. Afterall it's her word against .... no-ones!"

I agree with this completely. I don't think the prosecution proved its case at all. They had absolutely no evidence to show that she wasn't coerced - their entire case was to say "She is a very strong independent woman incapable of being coerced."

I still think that morally speaking, the jury gave the right verdict, but legally speaking (based on the judge's direction about burden of proof), they gave the wrong one.

tiggytape - I think that's a good analysis. And it does really raise the question of the way speeding points are dealt with. There's an in-built incentive to dishonesty. As you point out, it makes it very hard for the named person to say no, as they would have to report their spouse to the authorities.

Xenia - I haven't seen the statement from Huhne that you are talking about but I did wonder if VP made up the abortion pressure. It is his word against hers but if she stood any chance of making the coercion defence stick, she would have to give pretty damning examples of emotional abuse and the fact that she had been put under pressure before. Given that I don't think she expected to end up in court and the scope for her defence was very limited, it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that she elabourated a conversation they had about a surprise pregnancy about which they were not happy into a claim that he wanted her to abort and she didn't. I should imagine that for a lot of emotional abuse it is very difficult to find an example that sounds that bad. It is the constant drip, drip, drip of abuse that is so damaging, not so much each little abuse by itself. Plus, she did resist his demands to abort and he stayed so whatever threat he made wasn't carried through.

I really don't know what to think on that one, just saying the fact that she might have made it up crossed my mind and that if it crossed my mind then it could have crossed the jury's mind when they were weighing up the likelihood of her having been coerced.

However, if he is denying the abortion pressure, he would say that wouldn't he?

She comes across as even more scheming and manipulative than ever in the Times today as it reveals that after their article, said to be carefully crafted to offer her the maximum protection she didn't contact rhier journalist again as she had already given everything to The Mail to run the full story, thus landing her completely in it. Interested to see Huhne say today teh marriage was over and tehy had bee sleeping in separate rooms as when the Times journalist had a look around the house after he had gone it says all his stuff, including books on the bedside table was still where he had left it.

Mr Huhne has not issued a statement but his contacts have leaked to today's Sunday papers ( his lover is of course the PR girl) what might be said in mitigation tomorrow. In marriages like this where there is bullying (and of course only her children and he and VP know what really went on and the fact the children all support the mother proves it all in my view) I am sure the abortion issue was not the only one. VP is fair, good, hardworking and was left to hold the fort like so many mothers who work and are married to men who disappear abroad to mess around as MEPs and the like and leave women to handle far too much at home. She will be fine when this is all over. One rather hopes CH will not be fine.

I have just read the first few pages of the emails between Oakeshott and Pryce in the Telegraph. What a nightmare, it reminds me of a couple of teenagers plotting to bring down the boy who dissed them at school with a heavy dose of name dropping thrown in. How could any lawyer recommend her to go for coercion plea with the chance that those emails might go public?

She should have posted on the Mumsnet relationship forums, she would have got much better advice! Leave him, move on, fight for a good financial settlement, keep your dignity intact, detach, detach, detach, keep the love of your children, that is what matters. But she didn't speak to anyone wise, did she, she spoke to newspapers.

As for Oakeshott, I would like to write something insulting about her but don't want to get mumsnet in trouble. What bare ambition. Absolutely focussed on getting the story for herself, excited about getting an expenses paid holiday to Greece for the jolly jape of getting it all written down. I notice she writes her husband was keen for her to go away for a few days, one wonders why.... Not a thought of the wider consequences of what this would all do to Pryce and her family. Oh I am so glad that I don't have to work in an area that demands craping all over others to earn a crust and fulfil misplaced ambition.

Again, the thought of someone wielding massive economic power over this country who would believe a journalist driven with ambition that she won't get into trouble over the stories is terrifying. You'd think after learning she fell for that in her marriage (being tied in with someone only out for themselves), she'd be a bit more alert to it!

Oh it is so sad that these people get themselves in such a position of power. I am even more disgusted of Tunbridge Wells that these selfish women would give the public ammunition to be able to say "crying wolf" to those abused women who are genuinely, desperately in need of courts to protect them.

Liz jones has written a bit today about oakeshott. She's said how she's done similar so many times. Pretended to be a friend and confidante so many times purely for the purpose of getting a story.

I just googled Liz Jones to find that and in the biog piece on the right she's down as 94

I don't see how anything to do with the state of the marriage would entitle CH to mitigation. The guilty plea was the only chance he had to take any sting out of his sentence.

If he's looking for mitigation or rather damage limitation with these briefings it will be from the world at large with an eye to his future career whatever that might be.

The problem of proving something 'beyond reasonable doubt' was highlighted by the first jury who received a completely unhelpful response to their request for clarification on it. What is reasonable? How can it be defined/measured?

The fact that it was 'her word against - no ones' was a serious weakness of her case with the jury having to do all the work to decide whether VP seemed as if she might be capable of being coerced or bullied to that extent. The evidence against that was far stronger than the evidence for.

Xena
"the fact the children all support the mother proves it all in my view"

The same children who have just been told alsorts of nasty stuff about there father?

Children, especially ones in the late teens/ early 20s, are apt to come to their own conclusions. They are not stupid. You can't just brainwash them.

I would imagine that rather than seeking mitigation for himself, today's media briefings are more likely designed to ruin Vicky Pryce's chances of mitigation.

It's clear that Carina T and VP despise each other.

How are all these Oakshotts related? the ones who may or may not have been told about the points over dinner, and the journalist who revved up the story?

Are the Oakshotts related?

Wouldn't surprise me.

Most importantly - what sentence are they likely to get? I'm assuming custodial, but how many months/years. Didn't jeremy archer get four years? But I'd have thought these two will get less as I don't think trying to dodge a speeding ticket is quite as bad as bringing a libel case and lying in court about it???

Isobel is the cousin of Lord. Apparently she used this family connection to hint at things for VP she couldn't possibly deliver.

8 months for him and 4 months for her?

Maybe more for him.

I was rather hoping for a year of hard labour for him and 3 months suspended for her.

I only recently realised that a journalist who wrote in the Spectator about an MP's alleged sexual transgressions is apparently the partner of a lawyer who is representing a woman bringing a civil case against him.

It's all just such a tangled London web.

Like the Oakshotts, Pyce, Huhne, Trimingham, Briscoe.

Law, journalism and politics....and misery all round, really.