The barrister and part-time judge who was jailed for lying to police during the Chris Huhne speeding points saga, has been removed from judicial office.
Constance Briscoe – one of Britain's first black female judges – was jailed for 16 months in May after being convicted of perverting the course of justice over the investigation into how former energy secretary, Huhne, passed speeding points to his now ex-wife, Vicky Pryce.
Briscoe’s offences arose after she helped her friend and neighbour, Pryce, to leak information about Huhne's points-swapping to newspapers after the couple broke up in 2010. The speeding points case saw both Huhne and his economist wife jailed for eight months in March last year.
A recorder and fee-paid tribunal judge of the first-tier health, education and social care chamber, Briscoe was convicted after lying to police in a statement, falsifying a statement and providing a false document to an expert witness.
Sentencing her at the Old Bailey, Baker J said that the 57-year-old’s conduct had struck “at the heart of our much-cherished system of criminal justice”.
A spokesperson for the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office says that Briscoe, who has not undertaken any judicial duties since her arrest on 6 October 2012, has been removed from judicial office without further investigation by the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice following her conviction and sentence.
