Ruin for lawyer who lied to save police boyfriend from drink-drive charge

A disgraced solicitor wept at the Old Bailey yesterday as she was jailed for three months for perverting the course of justice to protect her policeman

boyfriend from a

drink-drive charge.

Penelope Schofield wrecked her career in a "moment of madness" when she claimed she was behind the wheel of the drunken detective's car when he drove home after a CID Christmas party. But she had left earlier by taxi, after having a row with Detective Constable Nigel Phillips because he was canoodling with another woman at the party.

The lawyer, from Hampshire, was told by the Recorder of London, Sir Lawrence Verney: "I have to bear in mind not only your personal position, but also the concern of the public that a practising solicitor had on this occasion practised deception and deception against the public justice."

Phillips, 31, also from Hampshire, was well over the drink-drive limit when he left the party on 6 December last year. On his way to the cottage he shared with Schofield he hit a kerb, had a puncture and drove to the police station where he was based. There he was breathalysed and arrested.

But after emotional calls from the station, Schofield rang to say she had driven most of the way home. Phillips was jailed for 16 months for perverting the course of justice and for driving while three times over the limit. The judge said the couple's behaviour had "ruined two promising careers in which each of you had given good service to the public over a long period. That those who offend are deeply involved in the process of public justice makes it even more serious."

Phillips was near to tears as he stood to one side to allow the sobbing Schofield, 35, to be taken to the cells. He had involved the woman he loved in a "desperate attempt to keep the job he loved", said his counsel, Michael Egan. Phillips's shame over ruining their lives led him to try to commit suicide last March, the court was told.

Mr Egan said the trial had brought home to Phillips "the full enormity and gravity" of his conduct. "He has destroyed a promising career. He has destroyed the relationship with the woman he sincerely loved."

Richard Lissack QC, defending Schofield, said it was hard to think of a greater shame for someone in the legal profession. As a lawyer she was confident, successful and highly regarded. But as a woman she was vulnerable, under confident and was always blaming herself as the result of an earlier, 13-year physically abusive relationship with another man.

When Schofield confessed to police, she said: "In a moment of madness, when I agreed to say that I had driven, I lost everything ... I did it for Nigel, out of stupidity, without thinking of the consequences." Now she had "lost her name, position in the community and career which is, or was, her life. She almost certainly will be struck off by the Law Society, Mr Lissack told the court.