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Vicky Pryce battered her ex-husband Chris Huhne so badly he need make-up to cover a black eye, a court heard today.

Pryce, a former government economist, was so angry about their marriage split she punched Huhne twice in the face, jurors were told.

She also dragged him through a window in an attack witnessed by "the whole Crescent" at the family home in Clapham.

Pryce also feared that the former Environment Secretary had hacked her phone, bugged the house and hacked her emails after the split with Huhne, said part-time judge Constance Briscoe.

Ms Briscoe, who is accused of lying to the police, said Pryce blamed Huhne's "sexuality" for the breakdown.

She wanted to tell the press that he had had relationships with men before they got married, jurors were told.

The court also heard that it had been claimed that Huhne had given Pryce a sexual infection when he was a Lib Dem Euro MP before his Westminster career.

Pryce was furious Huhne had "run off with a man" when he left her for bisexual PR consultant Carina Trimingham, said Briscoe.

Giving evidence in her own defence from the witness box, Briscoe described the "double punch-up, black-eye episode".

"She also dragged hin through a window, I saw it, in fact the whole crescent saw it," she said.

"Vicky gave him quite a few good punches and they landed well and he had to cover it up because he was on the telly all the time."

Briscoe said she had advised Pryce to "give an exclusive" to the press as therapy to help deal with the marriage breakdown in 2010.

Pryce had told her in 2003 that Huhne had pressed her [Pryce] to take his penalty points for speeding and save him from a driving ban.

Briscoe said she considered Huhne "a hypocrite and liar" who should explain himself "in the public interest".

But Pryce wanted to take revenge on Huhne by doing "a grand exclusive" with the press "about the sex stuff".

"But she wanted an exclusive without naming herself and that was not going to happen," said Briscoe.

"She thought it would lower her reputation if she came out with that in relation to Chris and her children would think less of her by doing what she had in mind to their father."

At the end of 2010 the exclusive story faded when Pryce had unfulfilled hopes of a reconciliation with Huhne and in 2011 the press became more interested in the speeding points scandal.

When the scam broke in the press both Pryce and Huhne were arrested and were later both jailed for perverting the course of justice.

Briscoe, 56, of Clapham, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of perverting the course of justice.

She allegedly lied to police in two witness statements prepared for the Pryce/Huhne trial and then altered one of the statements.

She is also said to have supplied a wrong copy of the altered statement to an expert.

The case continues