Question Author
Turns out that the hearing in the Crown Court started some days ago, his counsel arguing that continuance of prosecution was an abuse of process. Not surprisingly, this failed. Prosecuting someone ten years after the event could be an abuse, if the Crown was possessed of the necessary evidence in the first place and a fair trial was unlikely because witnesses or exhibits were not available or the witnesses could not be expected to have accurate recollection, but that was not this case. We prosecute murderers twenty years after the event, when the necessary evidence against them is first known. Of course, Mr Huhne might have argued that prosecuting someone as important as he is, over a mere lie in a traffic case, was an abuse !
On that being rejected, his counsel advised that he had no case worth fighting, no doubt, given the evidence in prospect. His plea, in these circumstances, lies ill with his earlier statements that a jury would accept that he was innocent; no question of acquittal on procedural grounds there.