Interesting thread.
Huhne pleaded guilty at the last possible moment, after several attempts by his legal team to get the case thrown out. So his sentence reduction will only be 10%.
There is no reason to imagine this is less serious a crime than any other. Scheming and lying to avoid a legal penalty is a matter which goes to the heart of the justice system.
The jury yesterday found that she was not coerced, she was complicit in perverting the course of justice.
There are three lessons to be learned from this case, which will be emphasised by the sentencing of both Huhne and Pryce:
- Lying to evade accountability under the law is unacceptable, no matter what the crime, and whether it is civil or criminal.
- Seeking revenge is usually futile and corrosive, and likely to rebound on the the person seeking revenge.
- As with Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken, being a high-flyer doesn't excuse self-serving lies to evade justice, it only means you have further to fall if (and usually when) you are discovered.
The reason I feel sad for Pryce is because I think she was goaded beyond reason by the downright nasty press briefings against her by Trimingham, during the Lib Dem Conference in 2010.
None of them come out of this well, but of the three of them, Pryce is the only one who gets my sympathy.