Disgraced judge Briscoe is out of jail – with a leg tag
CONSTANCe BrISCOe, who was sentenced in may to 16 months for trying to pervert the course of justice, has already been let out of prison on parole.
She cut a dejected figure as she went walkies near her Clapham home. It wasn’t only the dog that was on the leash, as Briscoe is compelled to wear an electronic tag as part of her release scheme.
When Briscoe was convicted, the judge said the verdict marked a personal tragedy for the author and barrister.
Once a pillar of the legal establishmnent, Briscoe, 57, was one of Britain’s first female black judges. But, this summer, she was found guilty of lying to police on behalf of Chris Huhne’s former wife Vicky Pryce during the investigation into speeding pointsswapping by the couple.
Former Lib Dem cabinet minister Huhne and Pryce were each jailed for eight months last year after it emerged Pryce had taken speeding points for Huhne in 2003. Both were let out on parole early after a couple of months.
Briscoe, who colluded with Pryce to leak details of the points swapping to the media, was given double their sentence. Not only did she lie to police, she also tampered with court documents to maintain her account of events.
‘Home detention curfew provides an opportunity for low-risk offenders to be resettled into the community while subject to a strict set of licence conditions,’ says a ministry of Justice spokesman.
‘If an offender breaches their licence conditions, they can be recalled to prison. To be placed on home detention curfew, a prisoner must be serving more than three months and less than four years, and have served a quarter of their sentence.’ It is thought that Briscoe, who was removed from the judiciary in August, will write her prison memoirs.
She had a big hit with her bestselling misery memoir, ugly, in which she claimed to have had an abusive childhood at the hands of her parents. But her family insisted the book’s claims were lies.
Briscoe has two children from a relationship with lawyer Adam Wilson QC. Her long-term partner, Anthony Arlidge QC, left her for a younger woman in 2010.
‘She and Anthony bought a house in France together and she has talked of going to live there,’ says a friend, ‘but she can’t go abroad while on parole.’