The jury has now been discharged and Vicky Pryce faces a new trial over whether marital coercion was used by Chris Huhne to make her take his speeding points. But let’s not forget one of the highlights of this trial. Last week, during summing up, Pryce’s legal defence Julian Knowles said: “Chris Huhne was once a politician who wanted your votes. Vicky Pryce needs your votes now, all 12 of them.”
Some will have heard an echo of another great political courtroom battle, that of former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe’s trial in 1979. The late great George Carman, defending Thorpe against the charge of conspiracy to murder his alleged lover Norman Scott, used a similar technique.
“I said words to the effect that in his time Jeremy Thorpe had obtained thousands of votes from the people of this country, and now came the 12 most precious votes of all,” he told the BBC in a subsequent interview. “I went round the jury pointing: ‘Your vote, and yours, and yours, and yours’.”
