Vicky Pryce says she has no regrets about being jailed over speeding points

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/14/vicky-pryce-no-regrets-jailed

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Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of the former cabinet minister Chris Huhne, has said she does not have any regrets about her past behaviour, which led to an eight-month prison sentence for perverting the course of justice.

The economist said she was thinking about the future and did not blame either Huhne or the journalist whose story led to the criminal investigation.

Pryce gave a series of interviews as she published a new book about the economics of the prison system, just a few months after being released from jail. She was convicted earlier this year of perverting the course of justice after agreeing to accept speeding points more than a decade ago on behalf of her then husband. After years of denying the offence, Huhne pleaded guilty and they both served nine weeks.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Pryce said there was "absolutely no point in having regrets" about what she did. Pressed further on whether she was sorry about her actions, Pryce did not express remorse and made it clear she did not intend to dwell on the past.

The story about the speeding points emerged after Huhne left his wife of 26 years for his lover, Carina Trimingham, who had been his PR adviser. Pryce confidentially told a journalist on the Sunday Times about her part in the story, which led to an article about Huhne asking someone close to him to take points on his behalf.

Asked about Huhne, Pryce said she had "no comment to make on what he thinks".

"I don't begrudge anyone in terms of what's happened, or any of the journalists, frankly," she said. She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I did something and I paid the price for it and that is it."

Pryce's new book, Prisonomics, argues that fewer women in particular should be sent to prison. She said many ended up in jail because of something they had done with or for a man in their life, such as a brother, husband or father.

Asked whether she felt harshly treated by the court, Pryce said: "I don't feel anything. I did what I did. This is what both the jury and the judge decided was a fair sentence. I decided there was absolutely no point in even thinking about whether that was fair or not. Lots of people thought perhaps it wasn't.

"But I knew from the beginning that sort of sentence meant a few months, and I knew that I would survive it. I was quite prepared to just go through it and not in any way contest what the judiciary thought."

Pryce said she was treated kindly in prison by other inmates, who brought her extra blankets and a working television when she spent a couple of days in Holloway before being transferred to an open prison.

However, she said it was a real punishment to lose her liberty and control over the outside world.

Pryce refused to comment on the judge's sentencing remarks, depicting her as a woman with an "implacable desire for revenge" after the breakup of her marriage.

"The thing to do in these circumstances is just to look forward, and I did," she said. "I make absolutely no comment at what he said."

Huhne has accused newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch of exposing his affair and the speeding points story as payback for his investigations into phone hacking at the News of the World. Writing in the Guardian after his release, the former Liberal Democrat energy secretary said: "The News of the World sparked the end of my marriage, but another Murdoch title, the Sunday Times, then groomed my ex-wife until she told them about the speeding points."