Chris Huhne's Trial To Start Next Week

Ex-Cabinet minister Chris Huhne is due to go on trial next Monday over claims he asked his wife to take his speeding points.

Huhne and Vicky Pryce were both charged last year with perverting the course of justice over the allegations.

It is alleged that Huhne persuaded his then wife to take his penalty points for a speeding offence a decade ago.

His car was allegedly caught by a speed camera on the motorway between Stansted Airport in Essex and London in 2003.

The allegations only emerged in 2010 when the politician and his wife, with whom he has three children, split up.

Huhne entered a not guilty plea during a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Monday.

Pryce, a former government economist, pleaded not guilty on the grounds of marital coercion at an earlier hearing.

The senior Lib Dem resigned as Energy Secretary in February last year to fight the charges but remains MP for Eastleigh in Hampshire.

At the time, he said: "I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts, and I am confident that a jury will agree (with me)."

Perverting the course of justice carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Huhne, who narrowly lost to Nick Clegg in a contest for the job in 2007, was tipped as a future Lib Dem leader before the claims emerged.