The Guardian. Chris Huhne: "I am sorry."

Chris Huhne, the jailed former cabinet member, has apologised unreservedly for lying for two years about asking his wife to taking speeding points, saying he felt "awful that people I love have been dragged into this gruelling experience".

In an interview with the Guardian hours before he was sentenced to eight months in prison, he said: "I am sorry. I want to say that to family, to friends, to constituents and to colleagues, and more broadly to everybody who cares passionately about the causes I care about, including saving the planet for our children and our grandchildren."

Huhne made one wider plea about his character and his behaviour in his marriage, saying: "I was not in court to answer … things that were said about me. Anyone who knows me knows I am not a bully and that I don't bully people. My reputation is not that.

"It is true I may be prepared to say harsh things to people who are my own size or bigger than me. But I am very proud that I am not the kind of person that behaves like that to anyone who is not in a position to respond."

Asked how he had embarked on a course of lies for so long, and to so many people, he said: "It is just too easy to rationalise, at the beginning. You think this is just a ridiculously small misjudgment to destroy your career, and you just hope that something will turn up to stop the consequences, and it does not."

Huhne has already been thinking about how to rebuild his life when his sentence is over. He said, calmly: "As to the future, I can draw some consolation in that, unlike some people in politics that have only been in politics, as a special adviser or as MP or minister, this is my third career. I know I can do other things because I have done them. It gives me a certain ability to have the confidence that, with the trust and help of others, I can do something positive at the end of this process.

"All I will say about my marriage is that I never rebutted anything she said."