Vicky Pryce is guilty

[UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea]

[TheDevilsAdvocaat]

Before we all leap to the poor woman's defence perhaps it is worth remembering that she originally claimed that one of his aides, Jo White I think, took the points for him. By doing so she was accusing a completely innocent person of a crime. She didn't do her research. Jo White didn't even have a driving license. Absolutely no sympathy for her or him.

[BigBoobiedBertha]

I'm not surprised either. They are as bad as each other. Well maybe not equally bad but I think the guilty verdict is probably the right one. She committed a crime. The jury are happy that she wasn't coerced so that means she knew what she was doing and was prepared to take the consequences. She lied as much as he did. She didn't do the speeding but she is equally culpable of perverting the course of justice.

He is a horrible little man but she inflicted even more hurt on her children that she really didn't need to inflict. She may not have ruined her relationship with them as he has, but they know things now they didn't really need to know. She would have been better off keeping quiet. It might not have got her revenge, it might not have got her exh sacked but it would have protected her children.

[CardinalRichelieu]

They BOTH committed a crime. Taking someone's points is a crime. So it's not true to say he committed the crime and she kept quiet about it.

She claims to have made big sacrifices for his career but I doubt the jury were convinced as she is very successful and well-paid. They both have extreme hubris in common.

He is an absolute tool though, firstly for trying to get someone to take his points, then getting banned anyway, then spending half a million on a top access to defend him and pleading guilty at the last minute.

If I was a child of theirs I would of course be angry about the affair, but I would find the splashing around of hurtful private details by my mother much harder to deal with emotionally. I'm not sure my relationship with my mother would be able to survive that.

[dopeysheep]

Neither of them have exactly covered themselves in glory have they? She allowed her son to learn that his dad wanted him aborted, in order to gain sympathy for herself. Horrible, both of them.
Devil's I didn't know she tried to pin the blame on someone else but it doesn't surprise me.
They both come across as squirmy insects exposed to the light. Bleurch.

[CardinalRichelieu]

Top q c not access

[carlajean]

she perverted the course of justice, perhaps thinking that the plea of marital coercian would get her off the hook. I'm glad it didn't. I'm also looking forward to seeing how constance Briscoe gets on when she's faced with the same charge, as seems likely.

[LineRunner]

I don't think the new girlfriend got the privacy ban she was after, because the judge said she'd aleady put herself in the public eye.

[mindosa]

I think she sowed the seeds of her own discontent.

Of course I think he is dreadful but that is no excuse for how she has behaved. I doubt revenge feels very sweet

[MechanicalTheatre]

The papers are fucking horrible about his new girlfriend.

OK, she was the OW and that's shitty, but Jesus, they are vicious.

[CardinalRichelieu]

Watching the news just now. Apparently the journalist at the Times told Pryce that if she told the papers about Huhne it would bring him down with only a 'minor risk' to her. I wonder if Pryce actually checked with a lawyer just how 'minor' the risk of her getting in trouble was - looks like she didn't....

[BerylStreep]

She didn't try to do the right thing. She didn't report it to the police and tell them the truth. She leaked it to a newspaper and fitted someone else up for it. Not the same thing at all.

Mechanical They are vicious about Carina because she is a right piece of work. She has sold stories about virtually every politician's sex life, then lied about it. She is a professional mud slinger, who then tried to sue the newspapers she had sold sex stories to. I'll post a link to the libel judgement, which she lost. The judge basically said she was a lying toe rag. That's why the journos are being vicious about her.

[FairPhyllis]

I am quite surprised. IMO the fact that she was motivated by revenge for the affair shouldn't have come into it - it should have been about what happened at the time when she took the points.

I wonder if there is an element of the jury not believing that a professional woman could be subjected to EA and coercion.

[JakeBullet]

Tbh I am not surprised....or that sympathetic for a woman who tells her child that his Dad wanted him aborted. I mean how fucked up must he be as a result of learning that bit of information which he really didn't need to know.

I think these are two people who work the system to their advantage all the time until one walks away and the other vows revenge. Nice.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

My, possibly poorly considered opinion on the whole thing, is it's a hell of a lot of fuss all round about nothing much.
I mean everyone goes over the speed limit occasionally, it's more or less a fact of life with driving in our society. And the whole thing has just ridiculously spiraled out of control in the most crazy way.

Mind you I'm strongly against speeding having lost good friends in 2 RTA's.
I'm a careful driver.

I agree too that I'd never tell one of my DC's that they were originally unwanted by either of their parents. Not that that was the case in our circumstances.

[yellowbrickrd]

I feel sorry for her in the sense that she allowed her rage at the affair to get the better of her judgement - she certainly won't be the first to do that, it is a pretty human failing. The tragedy here is that it started a catastrophic series of consequences that has taken the whole family down with it.

The marital coercion defence was never going to wash - for the sake of the children she should have pleaded guilty as well and got the thing over with instead of letting the media feast on it day after day.

[Viviennemary]

I think she is at least as bad as he is. I just don't feel sorry for her I'm afraid but I don't know all the ins and outs of the case. To me she came over as a force to be reckoned with and not some weak easily manipulated person.

[KarlosKKrinkelbeim]

Richly deserved. Despicable woman. There were literally no depths she would'nt stoop to to get herself off. She'd have been much better off admitting it at the first opportunity and having the decency to apologise.
She and her odious husband are the epitomy of what is wrong with the establishment today in this country today.

[LineRunner]

Watching Channel 5 news - they are alleging Nick Clegg and Vince Cable might have known about it all.

[duchesse]

The only thing she ought to have done was destroy the paper when he asked her to sign it. If she had refused to sign it and instead torn it into little bits he would have had to ask for another one and would have had time to find some other sap to take the blame.

Yes she has shown herself to be vengeful since then but if you compare that with his list of actually crimes, he is a heck of more guilty than she is.

Her ONLY crime was to sign that piece of paper.

He did committed the original driving offence.
He filled in the form wrongly.
He signed as being the truth.
He wasted police time by lying, and lied right up to the moment of being in the dock.

Her telling the truth years later may have calculated and vengeful, but it was not a crime. I would hope that our courts of law would judge and sentence people on the facts of the case, not on their feelings about them.

[RedToothBrush]

I wonder if there is anyone else who has taken speeding points for their partner who's now bricking it. It puts you in a very vulnerable place to lie on behalf of someone else.

I used to work for someone who took points for his partner as she would have lost her license otherwise. I was not particularly thrilled with being told because of the position it put me in, although there was no way I could prove anything. I did think about it, but eventually decided against it mainly because I felt the police wouldn't act on it or take it seriously because of the lack of evidence.

He was very pissed off at the time, but more because he had to go on a speed awareness course and he had to take time off work (hence why I knew) than because he took the points. He agreed to it since the alternative of her loosing her license would have a massive impact on him and their family life because he would have had to take on more responsibilities as a result. He didn't feel like he had any choice in the matter and felt pressured to do it. So I do not think it is uncommon for partners to take points for each other and I don't think its restricted to women taking points for men. They do it because they think they can get away with it as it relies on those involved admitting liability (because frankly they can).

I hope that this case makes people think twice though. So because so few cases like this have any chance of being successful, I do think she had to be found guilty to show that its a serious issue and to act as a deterrent.

The woman involved in the case I'm aware of, is a danger on the roads. She had got 3 point two weeks earlier and really should have been thinking especially since her other 6 points had been racked up in a similar place and she was well aware there was a camera there and the police had been stopping people regularly.

I am no longer on friendly terms with this guy thankfully. I hope he gets done for one of his dodgy actions eventually. He's overdue to be caught for something. They are no longer together though; I'm not sure why, but I doubt this can have helped.

[LineRunner]

Everyone denies everything.

[KarlosKKrinkelbeim]

The bit that gets me is she tried to resurrect some almost dead and enormously old-fashioned defence of marital coercion despite having been happy to be feted for years as the capable woman in a man's world. Fear of Holloway can do funny things to a person I guess, especially if they are completely unprincipled, which she quite clearly is

[carlajean]

duchess aren't you forgetting that she tried to pin it on her husband's aid?

[CardinalRichelieu]

Huhne is going to have to pay the CPSs costs as well as his own, will be over a million altogether