High-profile barrister and recorder Constance Briscoe has been charged with intending to pervert the course of justice.

Briscoe, who was suspended from the judiciary last October pending a police investigation, now faces two charges of providing inaccurate statements to the police in 2011 and 2012.

The BBC reported this February that Briscoe was under investigation for allegedly lying about helping to leak the story that former Liberal Democrat MP Chris Huhne had asked his ex-wife Vicky Pryce to take his speeding points. Huhne and Pryce both subsequently received eight-month jail sentences for perverting the course of justice.

Briscoe is now due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 24 June this year.

Crown Prosecution Service senior lawyer Deborah Walsh said in a statement: "We have today authorised the Kent and Essex Police Serious Crime Directorate to charge Constance Briscoe with two counts of intending to pervert the course of public justice.

"The first allegation is that, between 16 May 2011 and 6 October 2012, Constance Briscoe provided Essex Police with two statements which were inaccurate. The second allegation, dated 6 October 2012, is that Constance Briscoe produced a copy of a witness statement that had been altered and that she maintained was the correct version.

"This decision was taken in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors. We have determined that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that these charges are in the public interest."

Briscoe, who was called to the Bar in 1983 and is a member of 9-12 Bell Yard Chambers, became one of the few black female members of the UK judiciary after being appointed as a recorder of the Crown Court in 1996. Her criminal practice focuses on fraud, serious violence, murder and serious sexual offences.