Chris Huhne’s ex-wife has claimed the politician forced her to have an abortion in the 90s because it was “bad timing” to have a baby.
Vicky Pryce broke down in tears as she made the revelation during her evidence in her trial over allegations she took speeding points for the politician back in 2003.
It came as she insisted she only took the points because Huhne had already named her as the driver without her knowledge and presented it as a “fait accompli”.
The Lib Dem wanted to avoid losing his licence because he was worried it would affect his chances of selection as a prospective parliamentary candidate, she said.
As the mother-of-five spoke about their 26-year marriage, she revealed she had become pregnant unexpectedly in 1990 but had a termination.
Weeping, she told the court: “I got accidentally pregnant and obviously wanted to keep the baby because it was healthy. In fact, I quite like babies, that’s why I have so many.”
“He absolutely resisted it, saying it was bad timing, bad financially, bad for his career to be tied down again and despite my protestations, he got me to have an abortion, which I have regretted ever since.”
Pryce, 60, had two sons and a daughter with Huhne in the 80s and 90s and has two daughters from her first marriage.
The new dramatic claim about their marriage came as she gave evidence in her defence at her trial for perversion of the course of justice.
She is accused of taking speeding penalty points for her then husband but denies the charge on the grounds of marital coercion.
Huhne, 58, has already pleaded guilty to lying to police about who was driving. He has resigned as an MP and faces jail.
Pryce said the politician had asked her to take the points when he first received the letter from police so that he could avoid prosecution but she refused.
“I had absolutely no wish to take on his points because I knew full well he was a very, very fast driver and very often ignored speed limits and had brought it on himself,” she told the court.
They argued for “a number of days” before it “went quiet” until another letter came, which showed the police had been told she was driving, she said.
“It looked as if suddenly these points were addressed to me as the person who had been nominated as the driver of that vehicle. I exploded,” Pryce said.
“I said ‘I am not doing this, I am not signing anything, these are not my points.'”
She said she left the letter in the hallway “abandoned” on the table where it lay for a couple of days before she was called downstairs to sign it.
“My husband was standing by the form … with a pen in his hand, saying ‘You have absolutely got to sign that. If you don’t, the implications will be considerable,” she claimed.
Pryce said her name had already been filled in and she just had to sign.
She told the jury: “I had no choice at the time because he was standing there saying ‘This is it, this is the nomination form, you have got to sign this now’.
“I looked at this and realised I had absolutely no choice. I was already nominated. It looked like a complete fait accompli for me and for him.
“I had been worn down over a period of time and it looked to me like it was the only thing I could possible do.
“It didn’t look to me like I had any choice at all in the matter so I took this pen and signed, protesting all the time, but I did it.”
Earlier, Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott told how Pryce first revealed the points swap bombshell – “slightly under her breath” – when they had lunch in March 2011.
The pair later agreed they could reveal the truth in the newspaper as part of an interview with Pryce, where they would discuss the Westminster rumours.
The mother-of-five had been “very, very unhappy” at going along with his lie” and “felt that she had been put into an impossible situation by doing so”, Ms Oakeshott said.
By now, Pryce was furious that Huhne had left her for another woman and told the journalist in an email that she wanted to “nail him” and “bring Chris down”.
Ms Oakeshott said it was Pryce’s idea to record the politician on the phone to try and goad him into admitting his crime – recordings of which have been played to the court.
The economist was conscious of the risk she could face prosecution and an agreement was drafted to protect her ahead of publication.
Ms Oakeshott described her as a “fragile” woman whose emotions would “go up and down a lot” and who wore her image of a businesswoman in heels and a suit as a sort of “armour”.
“I was amazed throughout my dealings with her that she was constantly on the edge of tears. It took very, very little to tip her into a tearful condition,” she said.
“This was a broken woman, her marriage had collapsed in the most dramatic and horrible of circumstances and she was clearly absolutely devastated over it, no doubt about that.
“I got the impression that despite how she had been treated by her husband she was still very much in love with him, and it was really a terrible time.”
Ms Oakeshott added that if Pryce had been making the story up, it would have been “better than that” and not something that incriminated herself.
She described Huhne as “ferociously intelligent and ferociously ambitious” and a “very controversial figure” in Westminster.
