THE Attorney General has rejected a call to refer "unduly lenient" prison sentences handed to former minister Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce.
Tory backbencher David Burrowes had written to Dominic Grieve, QC, earlier this month questioning the eight month terms for perverting the course of justice.
Mr Huhne's former status as a Cabinet minister and Ms Pryce's as a government economist should have been treated as aggravating factors, he insisted.
However, Mr Grieve has concluded that any challenge is unlikely to succeed. He said: "Having considered the sentences very carefully, I have decided not to refer them to the Court of Appeal as I do not think the court will increase them.
"The Court of Appeal has set out what 'unduly lenient' means in practice.
"The power to refer sentences under the regime is an exceptional jurisdiction, to be exercised only when the sentencing judge falls into gross error."
Mr Grieve wrote: "To be unduly lenient a sentence must be below the range of sentences which a judge, properly applying his or her mind to all relevant factors, could impose."
However, he said that did not seem to be the case with the terms that Lord Justice Sweeney had handed Huhne and Pryce for swapping speeding penalty points.
Meanwhile, Labour MP Andrew Gwynne has written to Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to push for action to strip Pryce of the title of Companion of the Order of the Bath.
He said it was "profoundly unacceptable" for her to maintain the honour which she was given for work as an economist for the UK Government.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article