CHRIS HUHNE and his former wife Vicky Pryce committed an almost victimless crime – no one died as a result of what they did, although their careers have been killed off and their families have been left mentally scarred.

As is so often the way, it is not the original crime that has caused the downfall – in this case, breaking the speed limit – it is the cover-up.

Speeding can have fatal consequences, but the real damage was done because Huhne and Pryce lied and they perjured. They tried to manipulate the criminal justice system to suit their own ends. They tried to evade justice.

Huhne, as an elected representative of the people, must serve a sentence that reminds the people that attempting to corrupt our judicial system is a serious offence. He was rightly made an example.

Pryce, even though she was second fiddle in the initial perversion, dragged out her denial in a calculating way as she set about seeking revenge on her husband when he was unfaithful. From such an intelligent and powerful woman, her defence of marital coercion was weasley. She was trying to cheat justice right up to the end.

So prison – the demeaning strip search, the shared cell and the ribald comments of the other cons – is a suitable punishment.

However, there is a balance that needs to be found.

It is to be hoped that every penny that the wriggling pair have cost the state in legal expenses will be recouped from them. But the state will still have to pay nearly £1,000-a-week to keep each of them in jail. That’s a big drain on our collective resources in these austere times – that’s the wages of a couple of nurses or teachers.

After the short, sharp shock of a prison spell – say, a couple of weeks – they could have been sentenced to spending many hours putting something back into the community.

Yes, a month inside and seven more filling potholes in the snow – that’d teach them to respect the law and it would have been of some benefit to the rest of us.