Vicky Pryce is best known for the court case that saw her jailed along with her former husband, ex-MP Chris Huhne, after she accepted his speeding points when they were married. She is now campaigning for reform in women's prisons and spoke to Gavin Havery

A CUSTODIAL sentence did not come as a surprise following the conviction for perverting the course of justice for Vicky Pryce, the Greek-born British economist.

The jury had rejected her defence of ‘marital coercion’ for accepting the penalty points on behalf of Huhne, in 2003, when he was an MEP and the couple were husband and wife.

It emerged after their 26-year marriage fell apart when the former Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh and Secretary of State for Climate Change’s affair with PR advisor Carina Trimingham became known in 2010.

Pryce was given an eight month term, the same as Huhne, following her conviction in 2012, and sent first to HMP Holloway and then HMP East Sutton Park, an open prison near Maidstone, Kent.

But rather than being a daunting and terrifying ordeal, she says her life experience meant she was able to adapt and cope.

The 62-year-old says: “It would have been a culture shock, but I was convinced that this was going to happen to me and the other thing is I do not live in a sheltered environment.

“I live near Brixton and I have worked a lot in developing countries, travelling around the world in Africa, India, Bangladesh, Middle East and China.

“These are dangerous environments in which you have to operate.

“People were so incredibly friendly, the ones, I met. I did not have any adapting to do. There is solidarity you find among women’s prisoners, which you may not find among men.”

The public may perceive she, as the former wife of a philandering MP, would have been singled out for being part of the establishment, or humiliated in an alien environment that she, as the former joint head of the Government Economic Service, would not be used to.

In fact, she reflects on her 62 days of incarceration as a time when she saw a lot of humanity from warders within the prison walls as well as the inmates themselves.

Pryce says: “When I went into Holloway there was no strip search. We were treated with real dignity and I found I was being treated the same as everyone else. It does not take away from the fact that at the end of the day you get locked up in a cell, but there was quite a lot of solidarity and support.

“They know when a person goes in they must be depressed and worried about their children and they do come and chat and try to help as much as they can.

“I have said all along that I made a mistake and I had to do my time.

“I was prepared and completely determined to survive it. I knew as soon as judgement was made about how long I was going to be there and that it was going to be a short stay.”

Her prison experience has formed the basis of her new book, Prisonomics, which is part prison diary, part analysis of the socio-economic effect of the jailing of women.

“It is mainly women who look after children. When the woman goes to prison it is highly unlikely that the children stay in their own home, only five per cent do. “When a man goes to prison the children do not move. Many children go into care and it costs the state a lot of money. The average cost of keeping a child in care in £50,000.

“Children of people who have gone to prison often end up not in education or employment, often go on to get involved in anti social acts, like crime, and may end up in prison themselves.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Pryce found many female prisoners suffer from drug and alcohol problems as well as mental health issues and face unemployment and homelessness on their release.

She says four in ten have nowhere where to go, which can lead to reoffending.

But she maintains the key problem women in prison face is their ability to continue caring for their children.

She says: “This issue about women and children, which is generally ignored, is that separation itself causes problems.”

Earlier this month she was the key note speaker at a conference at Northumbrian University in Newcastle, arguing prison is not suitable for women.

Pryce, who has five, children, three with Huhne, also draws on how there is a disparity in wrong doing for men as opposed to the misdeeds of women.

She says: “The public perception is that if you are sent to prison you must have done something really, really bad and quite often the women have not some something really, really, bad.

“It is so much more difficult to reintegrate back into society with that view.

“What seems to happening with women, as we are supposed to be the fairer sex, if we do something wrong, then you must be really bad.

“Boys misbehave all the time.”