The judge has delivered the sentences at the end of the trials at Southwark Crown Court in which Chris Huhne pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice, and Vicky Pryce was found guilty of the same offence.
Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce have each been sentenced to 8 months in jail.
You can read a full account of what happened today during the hearing on the Guardian blog, thanks to some detailed tweeting from inside the court by Peter Walker, a Guardian journalist.
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27 Comments
Eight months for a non-violent first offence. No wonder we are spending such a ridiculous amount on prisons.
And the point of a custodial sentence is? Chris was an excellent MP and was one of the most able members of the Cabinet. I don’t know Vicky but her CV and interviews on current affairs programmes suggests that she made an outstanding contribution to public life too. They lose, the country loses, and the taxpayer loses. Really depressing.
But it is a serious offence – and rightly so IMO as perverting the course of justice is (pretty much be definition) an act designed to damage justice itself.
Terrible result, What good is this for anyone? a complete waste of money and time.
A first offence child molester would have gotten less, What happened to background reports?
No social worker would have advised custodial. Its a diabolical shame.
I was expecting 6 months but the sentences seem reasonable. The point about perveting the course of justice is that it attacks the whole basis of the system & the values behind it. Even now their behaviour will have given encouragement to potential criminals who want to beleive that everyone else is dishonest.
Defence lawyers often plead for their clients on the basis of background – poverty/broken homes/illiteracy/drug use etc. These were 2 healthy, well-off, well-educated, succsessful people who thought they were above the law.
I am glad they got the same sentence. They were both in on it and are both as bad as each other (for different reasons). I think 8 months is harsh, given that they have both already been utterly destroyed. I would have preferred to see them with 2-4 months, out in half that. The recovery of legal cash spent by the state, in addition to community service, exchanged for much of the custodial element, would IMO have been a better outcome for public and accused.
I do think we need to be careful when demanding harsh sentences in areas that would see substantial fractions of the nation in jail if everyone got caught. How many people have lied to the Council to get off a parking ticket? So I do think that the amount of public lecturing by journalists and elsewhere, regarding an original crime that a large proportion of the public do regularly (i.e. lie to escape traffic infractions – e.g. speeding, red lights, parking tickets, and other misdemeanours) has been a bit hypocritical. But then, this is politics, and we all love to judge others.
Maybe it would have been better for the judge to order Chris Huhne to hand over two or more of his houses to the Exchequer. That way the public purse would benefit.
The same sentence seems reasonable but how ridiculous that it has to be a custodial one – there are better and cheaper ways of dealing with non-violent criminals, regardless of their background, than this.
Linda – Possibly, possibly not. The sentencing guidelines have the lowest level of child sexual assault (non genital touching) with a starting point of 6 months – but there must also be consideration of a sentence for public protection. That is with a not guilty plea though which these cases either didn’t have or had only a very small amount of. And perverting the course is a more serious offence in that the maximum sentence is life.
(If you think this is too low – and I agree with respect of a lot of sexual offences – there is a constultation by the sentencing council open for three more days
http://sentencingcouncil.judiciary.gov.uk/consultations-current.htm)
Sentence seems to be fair to me. Perverting the course of justice. It does what it says on the tin. Like perjury, the justice system takes a very dim view of people who take the Michael out of the justice system by lying. If they don’t impose sentences which provide a warning and deterrent to others, then the whole system falls apart and anarchy reigns. It wasn’t just someone taking the other’s points, it was lying about it afterwards and swearing blind they didn’t do it.
Chris was an excellent MP and was one of the most able members of the Cabinet…
But also felt no shame in persistenly and consistently protesting his innocence with plenty of support from people on these forums….
Radio 4 reported that they will be out of prison in 2 months. I would have more sympathy with the idea that perverting the course of justice was a serious offence if I had a higher opinion of some solicitors and barristers. No chance of them being properly regulated.
Linda (and others in a similar vein): “Terrible result, What good is this for anyone?”
It’s only terrible in the sense that they were stupid enough to do the crime, when they had so much to lose. I’m happy with the sentences and hope they serve as a deterrent to others who think they are above the law.
Mboy: Parking tickets are generally a civil offence, and not really relevant here. The “hypocrites” you refer to are only actually hypocritical if they’ve done the same thing themselves, surely?
8 Months in Prison for a speeding offence, Jesus H Christ, what a Joke…
Sending people to prison for doing something that causes harm to no-one is barbaric. A heavy fine or even a suspended sentence would have sufficed.
Perhaps the Police and the CPS will now pursue with the same vigour those politicians who have sexually abused children. We live in hope, but I’m not holding my breath.
Moss – It wasn’t eight months in jail for a speeding offence. It was an eight month sentence for perverting the course of justice. Very, very different.
I refuse to accept that Chris Huhne is now an irredeemably bad man because of the terrible mistake he made here. I refuse to ignore the good he has done in politics – and I’m sure in his life as well. I saw him on Channel 4 News last night and I thought he handled hinself with dignity. The interview was just before sentencing but he knew what he faced. When he said that part of his motivation for lying had been a misplaced attempt to protect his family (as well as his career) I believed him. A key exchange in those heart-tearing texts with his son on May 21 2011 was when his son texted: “We all know that you were driving and you put pressure on Mum. Accept it or face the consequences. You’ve told me that was the case. Or will this be another lie?” and Huhne replied: “I have no intention of sending Mum to Holloway Prison for three months. Dad”
Huhne clearly saw that any admission by him would bring Vicky down just as much as him. For all her nuanced warnings Isabel Oakshott should certainly have known the same. His marriage had sadly broken up – another event upon which I refuse to pontificate – but Huhne did not want the mother of his children to go to prison.
I do not for one moment condone what Chris Huhne has done but I wish him well for the future. Neither he nor Vicky deserve to have their lives utterly destroyed by this. To those in this thread and elsewhere who vent their spleen I can only quote the Jesus H. Christ prayed in aid by Moss above – “He who is without sin among ye cast the first stone!”
@Denis
“I have no intention of sending Mum to Holloway Prison for three months. Dad”
I’d regard that as a thinly-veiled threat and an attempt to manipulate his son.
@Sesenco
“Sending people to prison for doing something that causes harm to no-one is barbaric. ”
His crime had a huge impact on my tax-paying pocket and the credibility of the justice system that keeps me safe. Hardly a victimless crime.
@Steve
How can a straight warning of an inevitable consequence of admission of guilt by Huhne, which has in fact now come to pass, be regarded as a “thinly-veiled threat”?
Just a reminder that Huhne lost the 2007 leadership election to Nick Clegg by only 511 votes.
Not that it seemed that way at the time, but it now looks like that election was a choice between Scylla and Charybdis — with a narrow win for Scylla. The deficiencies of the metaphor are obvious; Ulysses did not take Scylla on board and put it in charge of the ship.
@Denis
My reading of Huhne’s response is : ‘If I accept it then the one you care about, your mother, will go to jail for three months as well, if that’s what you want’. I’d regard that as a counter-threat dressed as false sympathy.
@Steve
“His crime had a huge impact on my tax-paying pocket and the credibility of the justice system that keeps me safe. Hardly a victimless crime.”
Your argument is somewhat circular, I feel. If the criminal justice didn’t treat offences of this kind in such a ludicrously punitive way, then a lot less public money would have been spent (and I suspect that both Chris and Vicky will be hit for most of the prosecution costs).
I fail to see how sharing speeding points has a “huge impact” on the justice system. Surely a greater, and more harmful, impact is had by Freislerite prosecutions and sentencing? I am thinking, more widely, of the people jailed last year for sending an offensive tweet about a footballer and for swimming in front of the University Boat Race. How much more credibility would the criminal justice system have if the punishments it handed out really did fit the crime?
How safe does the criminal justice system actually keep you? If you’re a super-rich member of the elite, then I suppose the answer is “quite safe”. If, however, you’re a teenager living in a children’s home, the answer is “not very”.
Oh, I was going to comment on the print media coverage of this case, but I want to keep my dinner down, so I’ll refrain.
Steve – you don’t seem to get it. Huhne’s warning about Vicky inevitably going down was true!
@Denis
I think it’s you that doesn’t get it at all. Huhne’s threat to his son, that if he accepted responsibility (as his son wanted) then his mother would also get punished, came true. I think if you actually asked his son then he would agree with me about Huhne’s words – his anger towards his father seems to stem from being hurt about discovering a long list of lies and manipulative behaviour.
@Sesenco
“Your argument is somewhat circular, I feel. If the criminal justice didn’t treat offences of this kind in such a ludicrously punitive way, then a lot less public money would have been spent (and I suspect that both Chris and Vicky will be hit for most of the prosecution costs).”
It’s not circular at all. Is putting away psychotic murderer, either in prison or secure hospital, worth the expense? Yes. It is a question of proportionality. In Huhne’s case, he committed a very serious crime and one that was likely to be copied by others if he was given a lenient sentence. The cost of sending him to prison is money well spent. Part of the justification for the sentence is the amount of time and money he wasted when he knew he was guilty all along. Those last two sentences are not contradictory, given that the money spent imprisoning him is well worth the expense, but the expense of trying to prosecute someone that lied by pleading guilty was completely wasted.
@Sesenco
As a further point: If it costs, say, 25k to send Huhne to prison for the two months he’s likely to be in there, the wasted money spent trying to prosecute him was 100k and the number of people deterred from doing the same thing is just 10, then the money saved by the taxpayer is 975k. If Huhne had been given a 10k fine the taxpayer would be 965k worse off.