Former Joint Head of the Government Economic Service of the United Kingdom, Vicky Pryce, is an economist and is the chief economic advisor at the Centre of Business and Economic Research.
Pryce was the middle child in a family of three and was born in Athens on 15th July 1952. As per records, she is described as the tomboyish kid who, at the tender age of 11 years old, would always be out of town and would return home at all hours and later ride a motorcycle. Upon turning 17, she relocated to London. She received a BSc in Economics and an MSc in Monetary Economics while pursuing her education at the LSE.
The mother of 5 was interrogated twice by Essex Police back in 2011 regarding accusations that she accepted driving license penalty points in 2003 that her former husband, Chris Huhne, actually incurred. It was revealed in 2012 that both would face charges of tampering with evidence and perverting the course of justice.
Pryce entered a plea of not guilty and attempted to use marital coercion as a defense during the trial. She was found guilty of tampering with evidence and given the same eight-month prison term as Huhne, on March 7, 2013, who had pleaded guilty in March 2013 and spent nine weeks behind the bar. Pryce completed her sentence at HM Prison Holloway. On May 13, 2013, Pryce and Huhne were released from prison with a conditional electronic tag.
Along with a successful career as an economist, she also has the tag of a successful author up her sleeves with various books like Women Vs. Capitalism, Prisonomics, and Greekonomics, among many others. Currently serving at the Centre for Economics and Business Research’s chief economist and a board member in London, she holds both positions. At Birmingham City University and King’s College London, Pryce serves as a visiting professor. Although Pryce is leading a single life now, she has been married not once but twice to date. Here’s more into the economist’s married life.
First Marriage:
Pryce first tied the knot with Gareth Pryce in 1972 at around 20 years of age. Gareth is a post-graduate student at the prestigious London School of Economics. Vicky and Gareth share two kids, both being daughters.
But their marriage didn’t last long, and they got divorced after spending nine years of married life. Gareth and Vicky divorced in 1981, after which Gareth was pretty much out of the picture, and there is no news about him, but however his brother, Christopher Pryce, reportedly has been reported to have had a significant presence during Vicky’s second marriage.
Christopher also is an alumnus of LSE and co-founded Castle Pine with Vicky’s second husband, Chris Huhne, which was a real estate business until Huhne ran and won elections for the MP of Easteigh in June 2005. Their collaboration didn’t end there. As a Lib-Dem candidate for Islington South in 1992, Christopher also ran for office.
Huhne later hired economist Christopher to work for him when he founded the IBCA company in 1994 to provide sovereign risk ratings. Huhne remained employed there as vice-chairman while serving as an MEP after IBCA’s merger with Fitch Ratings in 1997.
Second Marriage:
Two years after her divorce from Gareth, Vicky espoused Chris Huhne in 1984. Christopher Murray Paul Huhne is a British energy and Climate change consultant, a former journalist, and a politician who was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Eastleigh from 2005-2013 and served as Secretary to State for Energy and Climate Change for two years from 2010-12.
But sadly had to retire from his position on Feb 2012 after being accused of manipulating evidence in a 2003 speeding case. Where Vicky Pryce took license penalty points on his behalf so he could escape a driving prohibition, but later changed when found guilty, accepted that she had taken Huhne’s points, adopted a defense of marital coercion, and claimed that he forced her to sign a document that he had already filled out in her name.
Prior to the trial’s start on February 4th, 2013, Huhne maintained his innocence, but on that day, he changed his plea to guilty, left the Privy Council, and resigned from the House of Commons.
Vicky and Huhne had already been divorced by then. Their marriage ended in and around January 2011, after 26 years of marriage. The reports that came out by then stated the reason to be cheating. It was later cleared by Huhne that he was in a relationship for almost a year and a half with Carina Trimingham, his PR advisor, who was 46 at the time.
Pryce was furious and became hell-bent on bringing down Huhne on the driving case, within which a lot of matters unfolded and ultimately resulting in Huhne pleading guilty and being evicted from his position at The House Of Commons and Pryce achieving her ambition.
However, this was a strategic victory that she could never have imagined she would pay so dearly for as details of her and her children’s most intimate affairs were cruelly revealed in public, and she had to face jail.
