FROM BAR TO BENCH TO THE DOCK - THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WOMAN ONCE SEEN AS ONE OF BRITAIN'S TOP BLACK LAWYERS

'You thought respect for the law was for others': Judge brands disgraced barrister 'arrogant' and jails her for 16 months for lying to police over Chris Huhne points scandal

An 'arrogant' judge was jailed for 16 months today for repeatedly lying to police during the Chris Huhne speeding scandal.
Constance Briscoe, 56, was convicted of perverting the course of justice during the downfall of the then Cabinet minister after he asked his wife Vicky Pryce to take his speeding points in 2003.
Briscoe was found guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday, after pursuing a vendetta to destroy 59-year-old Huhne's career after he left Pryce, 61, for his bisexual aide Carina Trimingham.

Her corruption was exposed just before she was presented as an unimpeachable star witness at the former couple's trial last year, where they were subsequently convicted of perverting the course of justice and both jailed for eight months.
Jailing her today Mr Justice Baker said Briscoe had been 'motivated, as was Vicky Pryce, by a joint desire to ensure the downfall of Chris Huhne'.
He added: 'If there is a common thread between you all, then, from the insights I have had into the character of the each of you during this case, I regret that it is one of arrogance by educated individuals who considered that respect for the law was for others'.
Briscoe had lied when she gave statements as a witness and also tried to play down her friendship with neighbour Pryce, so was prosecuted herself.

Justic Baker said: 'You are the third individual to have been convicted of criminal offences arising out of a saga whose origin goes back to 2003, when both Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce lied about who had driven a speeding motor vehicle, and extends to you in 2011, when you sought to hide your true motive and role in the exposure of that story.

'You then compounded your position by deliberately fabricating evidence when you thought that you might be exposed.

'I am only too conscious that your convictions mark a personal tragedy for both you and your children. You are an individual who unsurprisingly has been something of a role model to others.
'Although blessed with intelligence, you did not have every advantage in life. However you worked hard at school and were the first person in your family to go to university.

'Having gained a degree in law, you joined the Bar and over the years established a successful criminal practice, and had the privilege of being appointed a Crown Court Recorder. You have done all of this whilst raising your two much loved children.'

The judge said: 'I am sure that you realise only too well that such conduct strikes at the heart of our much cherished system of criminal justice, which is integral and invaluable to the good order of society.'
Her career as a judge and barrister is also in tatters, as Briscoe will be kicked out of the judiciary in disgrace after 30 years
Mr Justice Baker said he had taken account of her previous good character and the 'devastating effect' of the conviction on her career.

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Devastated reputation: Her career as a judge and barrister is also in tatters, as Briscoe will be kicked out of the judiciary in disgrace after 30 years

Briscoe, 56, of Clapham, south London, was sentenced to four, five and seven months for the three counts, totalling 16 months in jail.
The barrister was charged with giving police two inaccurate statements, producing an altered copy of a statement which she claimed was the correct version, and deliberately getting a document expert to view the wrong version of her witness statement.
The Old Bailey heard that Briscoe helped Pryce reveal information about Huhne’s points-swapping to newspapers after the couple split in 2010.
But Briscoe was found to have  played down the closeness of her relationship with Pryce to police and covered up her role as Pryce’s intermediary with journalists.
Briscoe also altered a copy of her statement by simply adding a single letter ‘I’ and a full stop to cover up her dishonesty.
She was dropped by prosecutors at the eleventh hour when emails between her and journalists were discovered showing she was determined to ‘go in for the kill’ and destroy Huhne.
Briscoe, of Clapham, South London, denied the allegations and used the witness box to make lurid allegations about Huhne, claiming Pryce ‘felt the reason why the marriage had broken up was because of Chris and – can I say – his sexuality’. 

Couple: Huhne's marriage collapsed when the Press revealed he was having an affair with Carina Trimingham

Couple: Huhne's marriage collapsed when the Press revealed he was having an affair with Carina Trimingham

Huhne has said the verdict revealed Briscoe was a ‘compulsive and self-publicising fantasist’,  adding: ‘British justice is likely to be a lot fairer with Briscoe behind bars.
‘If she can make up the witness statements used as the key evidence against me, she is clearly capable of hiding evidence she should have disclosed to the defence in the many cases that she prosecuted for the Crown Prosecution Service.’
He attacked police and prosecutors who he accused of relying on the judge even after she was exposed as a liar.
Huhne added: ‘The Bar, the Crown Prosecution Service and the judiciary went on entrusting her with responsibility for people’s lives because they were not prepared to blow the whistle on one of their own.’

FROM BAR TO BENCH TO THE DOCK - THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WOMAN ONCE SEEN AS ONE OF BRITAIN'S TOP BLACK LAWYERS

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Once a prominent figure in the country's legal world, Constance Briscoe is today facing her own fall from grace as a consequence of her efforts to bring down Chris Huhne.

Born to two immigrants from Jamaica who settled in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, she rose to become not only a barrister, but a recorder or part-time judge - one of the first black women to sit as a judge in the UK.

Briscoe studied law at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, financing her studies by having several jobs at weekends and during holidays, including working in a hospice.

She took a Masters at the University of Warwick and was called to the bar in 1983 - becoming a recorder in 1996.

Described as 'fiercely proud' by colleagues, Briscoe was said to be a woman of 'integrity' and 'honesty', but was also someone who polarised opinion.

Her achievement as one of the country's most prominent black female lawyers was all the more impressive when her past was revealed.

One of 11 children, she published 'misery memoir' Ugly in 2006 detailing how her mother Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell - who was in court each day as Briscoe stood trial - abused her as a child, regularly calling her ugly, as well as abusing her physically.

The bestseller saw Briscoe sued by her mother, and a 10-day High Court trial heard Mrs Briscoe-Mitchell brand her daughter a 'wicked liar', claiming the book was fiction.

The libel action failed when the jury unanimously found the allegations in the book to be substantially true.

Another later book, Beyond Ugly, included more allegations and described how Briscoe had undergone cosmetic surgery to remove the 'ugliness' she claimed was caused by her mother's abuse.

Against that backdrop, she not only practised as a respected lawyer, but carved a career as a public speaker as she told of her miserable childhood.

In 2000 Briscoe moved to Crescent Grove, Clapham, with her two children from an earlier relationship.

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She went on to have a relationship with top QC Anthony Arlidge but it was revealed in 2012 that the barrister - 20 years her senior - had dumped her for a law student some 50 years his junior.

Briscoe emerged fighting - declaring that he was 'bonkers' and telling one newspaper that in fact their relationship had ended two years before.

But despite appearing to have it all, Briscoe's fragile success was to come crashing down when she became involved in Vicky Pryce's plans to bring down Chris Huhne.

After her role as Pryce's confidante was revealed in the press, the police's attention turned to Briscoe to find out more about what she had told newspapers.

But they found themselves effectively stonewalled as she avoided having to make a witness statement.

Senior investigating officer Detective Inspector Martin Pasmore described Briscoe in previous legal hearings as a 'strange character', revealing how one of his officers had to resort to waiting outside her home just to make contact with her.

'She tends to live her life in crisis a lot of the time,' he said. 'Whenever we tried to make contact with Ms Briscoe it would always effectively be on her terms - she was going to the gym or going for a run, there was never any urgency.'

Nowhere were his views of Briscoe's 'life in crisis' more clear than the video - shown to the jury - of her home when police searched it. Within the spacious Georgian flat in Clapham, the apparent chaos of the judge's life was clear to see, from papers and folders piled up throughout and clothes strewn across the bannister, while a large promotional poster of Ugly adorned one room.

And Briscoe's disorganisation was noticeable to colleagues, with one saying her court papers looked as if they had been 'thrown up in the air and allowed to land', while Philip Katz QC, from Briscoe's 9-12 Bell Yard Chambers, said her paperwork preparation for trials she had worked on with him was 'occasionally incoherent' and her work could sometimes appear 'slapdash'.

But it was Chris Huhne's own description of Briscoe that perhaps rings true in the wake of her conviction.

During his own police interview, the disgraced MP told officers she was a 'publicity seeker of longstanding' while in a phone call with Pryce, recorded by the economist, he told his ex-wife: 'The only person who I, who you know, who is batty enough to go on this sort of vendetta is Constance...'

And as she faces not only the end of her career as a barrister and judge, but a possible prison sentence, even Briscoe herself might admit that getting involved in the Pryce-Huhne saga was not the wisest move she has made.

Credit: Daily mail