The UK's Energy Sec. Chris Huhne has resigned after learning the Crown Prosecution Service planned to try him for perverting the course of justice.
"I'm innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I'm confident that a jury will agree," Huhne said after learning of the CPS's decision to try him and his former wife, Vicky Pryce.
"All the available evidence…has now been carefully considered by the CPS and we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against Mr. Huhne and Ms. Pryce for perverting the course of justice," said Keir Starmer, director of public prosecutions.
Speeding ticket
"The essence of the charges is that between March and May 2003, Mr. Huhne, having allegedly committed a speeding offence, falsely informed the investigating authorities that Ms. Pryce had been the driver of the vehicle in question, and she falsely accepted that she was the driver," Starmer said.
The case comes down to something simple: taking responsibility for a speeding ticket nearly a decade ago when Huhne and his wife were thought to be a happily married couple with three children.
But things fell apart in June 2010 when Huhne was watching a World Cup football match on TV, and at half-time told his wife that a newspaper had discovered he was having an affair.
Reports say that Huhne then retired to his study, wrote a press release confirming his separation from his wife of 26 years and the mother of his three children, leaving their home to go to the gym.
The conversation lasted "only a few minutes" according to Pryce, who in anger blew the whistle on Huhne over the traffic ticket, an impulse for revenge that has led to the potential destruction of Huhne's career and, perhaps, jail time.
Crucial time
Huhne's resignation comes at a crucial time for the UK's energy industry as a quarter or so of the country's electricity generating capacity—coal and nuclear—is due to close over the next decade.
"It's not a good time to be losing an energy minister," Dominic Nash, an analyst at Liberum Capital, told the Telegraph newspaper.
"It's getting toward a real crunch time—power stations are going to start closing in 2016-17 and unless the market improves the supply security is going to get a bit shakier," Nash said.
Huhne may well be found not guilty of the charges during the trial that starts this week.
But one charge he simply cannot avoid is that of ignoring an old adage: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
This is a matter of the utmost importance in domestic politics.
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