Jeffrey Archer,Received four-year sentence
The editor of the Daily Star has said that the newspaper is seeking £2.2 million from the novelist and former politician Lord Archer. Mr Archer was today sent to jail for four years for perverting the course of justice and perjury.
Lord Archer began his jail sentence at Belmarsh Prison in southeast London today for lying and cheating in a libel action against the tabloid. In 1987, Mr Archer sued the Daily Star for libel and won £500,000 sterling damages over allegations that he slept with a prostitute.
He is to lodge an appeal against his conviction. Before sentencing him, Mr Justice Potts told Lord Archer, "These charges represent as serious an offence of perjury as I have had experience of and have been able to find in the books."
He told him, "Sentencing you Lord Archer gives me no pleasure at all, I assure you. It has been an extremely distasteful case, I can tell you." The judge said that he would have to serve at least half of the four-year sentence and also ordered him to pay £175,000 costs within 12 months.
The jury earlier found Lord Archer guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice and two of perjury. His co-defendant, Ted Francis, was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice. Lord Archer was cleared of one count of perverting the course of justice.
The judge at the perjury trial had told the jury he would accept majority verdicts, but he asked the jurors to continue to try and reach unanimous verdicts if they could.
The jury had been considering its verdicts since last Friday. The writer and former politician denied two counts of perjury and three counts of perverting the course of justice during his libel case against the Daily Star in 1987.
Lord Archer, 61, used false diaries and concocted a bogus story in his defence against the newspaper's claims he slept with prostitute Monica Coghlan. Ted Francis had been charged with providing Archer with a false alibi during the case, but was found not guilty.
