Vicky Pryce is guilty

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Don't worry anyone with eyes, regardless of their view of the Pryce case, can see you haven't done anything to deserve those comments.

"Maybe Karlos is a regular defendant? "
That wouldn't be a personal attack, of course. Perish the thought.

I feel sorry for her. I can so understand the overwhelming urge/need to get your own back in her situation but it has back-fired horribly. I think that because she is a strong, professional woman career-wise, the jury found it hard to believe she was coerced by her husband into taking the points. It's hard to know what goes on in a couple's home though, and that may or may not be true. Either way, she was dealt a shitty hand by her cheating toad of a husband and wanted him to suffer as he'd made her suffer. In the end, both of them have. What a mess.

I have to say this tendency to excuse or mitigate what she has done on the grounds that her husband cheated shows that people confuse the private and public spheres to a very worrying extent. Doing this can get you into a right bloody mess. As Vicky Pryce could tell you, if she had even an ounce of self-knowledge.

they say that if you plan revenge, you need to dig two graves.

So what's the deal with Briscoe? Is she is serious shit as well?

Sorry sm x-posted and cut across you there.

There it is again!
Your husband cheating on you does not excuse breach of the criminal law.
if you are someone whose livelihood depends to any extent on reputation, being involved in something like this suggests you are either chronically stupid or arrogant to the point of insanity. i spend time at nights lying awake about breaches I might have committed inadvertently. the notion that people in their position would have run a deliberate risk like this is mind-boggling to me. They must have thought that the humble little coppers dealing with it were just dickheads. As people of their type often do.

Briscoe is a serial attention seeker. I am basing that on nothing to do with this case but solely on her publishing her misery memoir and her public appearances.

I saw Briscoe on Question Time once and I felt embarrassed.

Not just her - many QT panellists do that for me.

karlos, i agree with your last statement about the arrogance of people at this level of society. they clearly think that only the little people go to jail and not them.

constance briscoe seems to be in the evening standard every year with some story or another. i don't know what her problem is. she is a barrister/qc, she should have been able to calculate the ramifications of this story and tell her friend not to go down this route. after apparently working hard to raise herself from the lower echelons of society she has probably thrown everything away.

all these people see themselves as much cleverer than the ordinary run of society.

Huhne apparently described Briscoe as delusional. I thought that was pretty funny given the circumstances.

Actually you can be called to be a juror any time. You have the right to refuse to serve again if you have already done jury service within the last 2 years but they can call you. Plenty of people have done it more than once - it isn't that unusual. I met several who had done it before on the jury I was on 3 weeks ago. One woman was on her 4th round of jury service although she was in her 60's so they were well spread out.

Karlos, as you are seemingly a lawyer, you are naturally particularly wary of breaching the criminal law, as it could cost you your career.
But I think it is important to look at things from an ethical point of view. For instance driving at 72 miles per hour on the motorway is a breach of the criminal law. Many people do it every day with no adverse impact on anyone, and there is no social stigma attached to it. Having a secret second family with another woman, and leaving all your worldy goods to your second family when you die, is perfectly legal, but very nasty. Much more unethical than driving slighly over the speed limit. It is quite possible to ruin somebody else's life, quite deliberately, without doing anything that would attract the attention of the police. Why expect people to disapprove of something more just because it has been classified as a criminal offence?

There is nothing Karlos has posted that suggests to me s/he is a lawyer. You know, just in case anyone might give two hoots what i think

Are lawyers allowed to serve on juries? I know there are some professions, such as police, who aren't allowed to. Not sure about lawyers.

They relaxed the rules on who is eligible for jury service a few years ago

This thing is like the end of Hamlet, where all the characters are lying dead on the floor covered in blood and Fortinbras walks in and goes 'wtf'.

Things we have learned today: marital coercion is not a strong defence. It is better to take legal advice from lawyers than journalists. The involvement of law in ones personal life is to be avoided at all costs.

VPs crimes were only significant compared to her husbands if you accept that marriage has women as junior partners. They were both in this together.

Well, they colluded to pervert the course of justice; I would say they are as bad as each other.