Liar...
How Jeffrey Archer destroyed his political career:
The roller-coaster
career of Jeffrey Archer, politician, failed businessman and millionaire
novelist, came to a dramatic halt in July 2001 when he was jailed for
four years for lies he told in his libel action years ago. 14 years on,
we take a closer look at the event that earned him the title Liar
Multi millionaire novelist Jefferey Archer
had it all - the art collection, the country residence, the 'fragrant'
wife and an enormous skeleton in his cupboard. Archer had a liking for
encounters with prostitutes 'insulated in rubber' but had sued for libel
when a newspaper published the truth and won £500,000 damages. His
career continued without a hitch and he was preparing to run for Mayor
of London when two embittered friends emerged from the shadows to
destroy him.
Jeffrey Archer arrogantly believed he was
untouchable as scandal after scandal failed to destroy his golden
reputation.
But after a lifetime of lies, Archer's
obsession with sex finally allowed his former secretary Angela Peppiatt
and old friend Ted Francis to ruin him.
Archer, a former policeman, corrupted and
twisted the 1987 libel action in his favour after he was exposed as a
sexual deviant.
Alibis and diaries were concocted and faked
to preserve his reputation and overriding ambition.
The
confidante of Margaret Thatcher and John Major mixed fantasy and reality
as he had done all his life to fool judge and jury at the High Court and
walk away with £500,000 damages.
It was the performance of the complete
conman - a trade inherited from his father William, a bigamist, swindler
and compulsive liar who appeared at the dock of the Old Bailey 87 years
before his son.
William Archer (born 1875) was accused of
various frauds but fled to France in 1914, leaving the friend who put up
his bail to serve a jail term.
He returned after the war but escaped trial
when one witness died and another vanished without trace in Europe.
William Archer was in his sixties when he
married Archer's mother Lola, who was to die during her son's trial.
THE FIRST JEFFREY ARCHER
The couple's first son was also christened Jeffrey but he was later
given up for adoption and renamed David Brown.
The existence of ‘the first Jeffrey Archer’ had an indelible effect
on the politician's boyhood, effectively making him a fraud from the day
he was born.
After gaining just three ‘O’ levels at school near his home in
Weston-super-Mare, Archer began lying in earnest, claiming degrees from
the University of California and a bogus military career for his father.
He started a career as a PE teacher and managed to get into Oxford
University to begin a diploma in education and a political career which
would make him a household name.
It was at Oxford that he was to meet his beautiful and long-suffering
wife Mary, who would help boost her husband's career and ignore
countless affairs.
She would also become embroiled in one of the financial scandals
which would feature throughout the life of the disgraced peer.
Even as a student Jeffrey Archer was plagued with rumours of
financial wrongdoing - fellow undergraduates were amazed that he owned
houses and cars with personalised number plates while working part time
as an Oxfam fund raiser.
As an MP in 1973, he settled out of court after he was accused of
fiddling his expenses for United Nations charity work. Archer had to pay
all costs and the allegations against him were never retracted.
PEER'S INSATIABLE SEX DRIVE
In the 1970s Archer's insatiable sex drive led him to begin the first
of his ‘public’ affairs with society girl Andrina Colquhoun.
The affair had been preceded by a string of casual flings with women
he entertained at his fabulous Thames riverside apartment, Alembic
House.
After plying them with champagne and showing off his impressive art
collection, Archer seduced his conquests on his exclusive white leather
furniture.
Mistress Andrina was cheated on herself but was still supportive of
her former lover when he dumped her in 1985 after the then PM
Margaret Thatcher warned Archer to tidy up his personal life.
Other lovers included he bubbly blonde actress Sally Farmiloe, who
dubbed Archer ‘Wonder Boy’ because of his sexual endurance.
Despite his high profile Jeffrey Archer could not resist the risk and
the danger of squalid sex with prostitutes and was self-deluded enough
to believe he could lie or browbeat his way out of any challenge to his
integrity.
After his liaison call girl Monica Coghlan in 1987 he begged the
editor of the News of the World not to publish the story - and then took
the paper to court with the Daily Star.
Archer set about persuading friends to help him prepare a cast-iron
and completely dishonest case against the newspapers to win the libel
case.
The
film rights to his future books were given to friend Terence Baker in
exchange for an alibi covering the sex session with Coghlan at the
Albion Hotel.
CALL GIRL PAID TO VANISH
Friend and PR man Michael Stacpoole was later hired to pay Coghlan
£2,000, to vanish - and she arrived at Victoria Station to collect the
cash as undercover newsmen looked on.
Archer's secretary Angie Peppiatt was ordered to fake two diaries to
back up his story that he was with Baker on the night he was with
Coghlan.
TV producer Ted Francis was also been roped in to provide an alibi
for Archer - and was inadvertently given the wrong day to lie about.
But after he had won the case, Archer made the fatal mistake of
upsetting those entrusted with his guilty secrets.
After Francis provided the alibi, Archer gave him £12,000 to produce
an Enid Blyton series on television.
He then deliberately embarrassed Francis by mentioning the debt in
front of guests at one of his famous Krug and shepherd's pie parties.
It was the chance remark that destroyed Jeffery Archer.
The lies Archer hoped were buried for ever surfaced again when
vengeful Francis went to the News of the World with his story.
For £14,000, he destroyed Archer's candidature as Mayor, his
reputation and his career.
A WOMAN SCORNED
Peppiatt had been sacked by Archer after she caught him fiddling her
expenses and in the true tradition of ‘a woman scorned’ she walked out
of his office with armfuls of incriminating documents.
She would have no hesitation in twisting the knife in Archer's back
in court, telling shocked jurors how she knew of at least seven of
Archer's lovers apart from his mistress.
Archer remained silent in court, hoping his wife could help get him
off the hook as she had done in 1987, when her performance in the
witness box left a High Court judge fawning over her like an infatuated
schoolboy.
But her haughty arrogance and black stockings failed to impress Old
Bailey judge Mr Justice Potts, who repeatedly warned her not to give
evidence for her husband. Jeffrey Archer was left staring at his feet as
his wife's role sacrificial lamb failed to save him.
He showed no emotion as he was found guilty of four of the five
charges he faced.
Lady Archer closed her eyes while the guilty verdicts were announced.
Mr. Justice Potts told Archer he was guilty of the most serious case
of perjury he had seen as he jailed him for a total of four years.
‘DISHONESTLY TO MANIPULATE'
‘The fact is that in January 1987 you set out dishonestly to
manipulate a proceedings which you had chosen to institute against the
Star newspaper,’ he told Archer.
‘You did so I am satisfied certainly from 8th January when you
required Mrs. Peppiatt to obtain a blank Economist diary for 1986.
‘And you went on choosing your man with care to incite Ted Francis to
write those letters to your solicitor setting out the false alibi
knowing that he was in need of money for his TV project.
‘Sentencing you Lord Archer gives me no pleasure at all, I can assure
you. Very little in this case could be said to give any sensible person
pleasure.
‘It has been a extremely distasteful case.’
Jeffrey Archer has always bounced back - from fiddling expenses, near
bankruptcy, claims of shoplifting in Toronto,and the allegations of
insider dealing over the £80,000 profit made on Anglia TV shares when
his wife was a company director.
Since his conviction he has written a bleating prison diary and has
completed new novels.
Those who worked to expose him have not shared Archer’s good fortune
- Terence Baker died of a heart attack in 1991, Coghlan was killed in a
car smash and Michael Stacpoole was partially paralysed after a stroke.
- Court News UK
Pix courtesy: Guardian UP |