Trial date is set for barrister accused of perverting justice

Constance Briscoe, 56, is accused of two counts of intending to pervert the course of public justice, relating to statements made to police. The first alleges that between May 16 2011 and October 6 2012 she provided police with two statements that were inaccurate and the second alleges that on October 6 she produced a copy of her witness statement that had been altered and maintained it was the correct version.

Briscoe, of Crescent Grove, Clapham, south-west London, attended a preliminary hearing at the Old Bailey yesterday where a provisional trial date of January 14 at the same court was set.

A plea and case management hearing will take place on October 4.

Briscoe was suspended by the Office for Judicial Complaints when she was arrested in October last year.

After her charge on June 12, she said she was “deeply distressed” by the allegations, issuing a statement that said: “I have not committed the offences alleged against me and I will fight the allegations in court.

“There is a great deal more I would like to say now but I have been advised that I should not do so at this stage. I ask only that no judgment is reached against me on the basis of this prosecution decision and before the full facts are heard.”

Briscoe’s mother Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, who sued the barrister over claims made in her “misery memoir” Ugly, was in the public gallery at the Old Bailey yesterday during the appearance.

Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce received eight-month prison sentences after it emerged that she had taken driving penalty points for him a decade ago.

The former Energy Secretary pleaded guilty on the first day of a planned joint trial in February, and economist Pryce was later convicted by a jury. Both have now been released from jail.