‘He demanded I have an abortion’: Vicky Pryce reveals all about Chris Huhne
By politics.co.uk staff
The extraordinary personal drama of Chris Huhne's relationship with Vicky Pryce continued today, after she told a courtroom he forced her to get an abortion in the 1990s.
The ex-wife of the former climate change secretary is in court fighting allegations of perverting the course of justice.
"Despite my protestations he got me to have an abortion, which I have regretted ever since," she told the court.
"I felt I had no choice."
Pryce is relying on a defence of marital coercion against allegations she took Huhne's speeding points over a March 2003 incident when his car was caught by a speed camera on the M11 motorway between Stansted Airport and London.
She said she issued a "resounding no" when Huhne asked her to take the points, after which there were weeks of argument.
"I exploded, probably used one of my Greek swear words and said I'm not doing this," she said.
"I had been worn down over a period of time and it looked to me as if it was the only thing I could possibly do."
When the letter arrived with her as the stated driver, Pryce told the court he stood with the pen in his hand and said: "You've absolutely got to sign this now".
She added: "I was furious, almost speechless".
She then said she took the pen and signed "protesting all the time".
"I was put in an impossible situation where implications [of not taking points] were too great for my family to bear".
Asked what Huhne was like as a husband and father, she replied: "Absent, mostly."
The economist told the court she married Huhne in 1984, three years after her first marriage.
"I cared for him a lot. I was very much in love," she said.
Their worst disagreement in their early years of marriage concerned the euro, which she opposed and he supported.
Asked how she felt when she heard Huhne was having an affair with Carina Trimingham, a media adviser on his leadership campaign, she said: "I knew her as a lesbian. It seemed preposterous."
