VICKY PRYCE has spoken for the first time about her remarkable life behind bars after she was jailed for taking speeding points for her ex-husband, the former British Lib Dem Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne.

Economist Ms Pryce, 61, reveals how she built up a rapport with many inmates, including lifers and drug dealers.

And she says that, like her, most of the women she met inside were serving time because of something men close to them had done.

Ms Pryce - who started her sentence in Holloway, Britain's toughest women's jail - was inspired by her experiences to write a book about how and why women end up in prison - and to express her concerns about the way they are treated there.

Her compelling account, entitled Prisonomics, is being serialised in The Mail on Sunday.

Ms Pryce was sentenced to eight months for accepting Mr Huhne's points. Her admission that Huhne had asked her to take his points was widely seen as an act of revenge after he left her and their five children for another woman.

He was also jailed, for perverting the course of justice.

Ms Pryce spent four days in Holloway, two months at an open prison and two months "on tag" at home.

In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, she explained why she wrote the book. "What really did it was talking to the women in Holloway and realising they were there mostly because of something their husbands, brothers, fathers, had done. What I thought was that these women were very vulnerable when they had committed whatever it was they had committed and in some cases taking the rap for what others had done."

Women account for only five per cent of the prison population but the number incarcerated increased by 85 per cent between 1996 and 2011.

They are generally convicted of less serious crimes than men but the consequences are much greater, as women tend to be the mainstay of the family. Ms Pryce said: "For nonviolent and non-serious offences, alternatives to prison might be more appropriate. The book doesn't give the answers but I hope it puts the debate out there."

As she got to know her fellow inmates, Ms Pryce embraced prison life, taking part in karaoke - and playing bingo for the first time.

"I didn't sing," she laughed, "but they did all the usual ones - I Will Survive, stuff like that. I liked the bingo, it was hilarious. I'd never played before."

Since her release, Ms Pryce has tried to rebuild her career - even as she was tagged.

She attended a select committee meeting with her tag - wearing trousers as it was on her ankle - and since its removal has thrown herself back into work, attending economics lectures and debates.

She went to the Tory and Lib Dem conferences, and hasn't ruled out becoming an MP herself. She is also passionate about trying to help women inside prison and on their release, and has become a patron of Working Chance, a women's charity which helps ex-offenders find work.

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Originally published as The grim reality of life inside a female prison