In terms of spectacular falls from grace, last month's jailing of Lord Archer was up there to rival Peter Mandelson, Jonathan Aitken and Richard Nixon.Not since Cecil Parkinson's heyday had the exploits of a Tory grande e taken so many column inches in the tabloids, with 'Big Brother' pushed off the front pages to make way for tales of forged diaries, illicit affairs and taped phonecalls.The revelations which unfolded in court 8 of the Old Bailey, more like a plot from one of Lord Archer's airport novels than a criminal trial, led to his conviction for perjury and perverting the course of justice, and a four-year jail sentence.The criminal trial revolved around a libel action brought by Lord Archer in 1987 against the Daily Star newspaper, which had claimed that the then-deputy chairman of the Conservative Party had been seeing a prostitute, Monica Coghlan.
Jeffrey Archer vigorously denied the claims, and despite winning £500,000 in damages from the newspaper after a colourful court case, was forced to resign from his post in the Conservative Party.A letter written by Lord Archer's friend Ted Francis -- giving him an alibi for a particular night -- although never actually used in the trial, became significant 12 years later in 1999, when Mr Francis admitted to the News of the World that its contents were false.Such a labyrinthine tale was a dream come true not only for scandal-hungry journalists, but also for media lawyers, as a staggering number were employed on all sides to unravel the legal web surrounding the implications of both the original libel trial and the more recent criminal case.David Attfield, an assistant at City firm Lovells, has particular reason to be pleased at the outcome, as his firm represented the Daily Star in its original libel defence.
'Nick Atkins [now a partner at the firm who worked on the 1987 trial as an assistant] felt vindicated when these new revelations came out,' he says.
'He lived and breathed the case, and when everything blew up again in 1999, he felt that he'd been proved correct.'The Lovells team, led by Mr Atkins and assisted by Mr Attfield, is once again acting for the Daily Star, and issued a civil claim for £2.2 million against Lord Archer on the day of his criminal conviction.They were instructed by the paper on the day that Ted Francis's admission appeared in the News of the World.
'We did a huge amount of detective work,' Mr Attfield said.
'Contacting key witnesses, to see what light they could shed on our case and taking statements from them -- we also provided documents from the original trial, which we handed over to the Crown Prosecution Service.'He stresses that their own research was carried out in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police's own inquiry, and the work they undertook 'was the same that we would do for any case such as this'.The £2.2 million they are demanding from Lord Archer is the original libel award in today's money, plus costs and interest since 1987, and Mr Attfield is cautiously optimistic of their chances.
'I think we'll have to pursue him for the money, but we're confident that we will get it back,' he says, and that the criminal conviction is 'the best evidence we could have to help us'.Others are more outspoken.
'The Star's claim is almost certain to be successful,' says Dan Tench, an assistant at Olswang, who until last year was at Lovells working on the Star case and gave evidence for the Crown at the recent criminal trial.
'His conviction appears to leave the way clear for the Star.
'While at Lovells, Mr Tench was also involved in the information gathering stage of the inquiry, and it was this that led to his self-confessed 'small role' in the witness box.
'I gave some very straightforward evidence about the documents we handed to the police a nd their origins,' he said.Mr Tench says a civil court is 'extremely likely' to accept that a fraud was committed at the 1987 trial due to the 'compelling evidence' of the criminal conviction.However, he stresses that the Star would have to prove that the fraud was probative, meaning that had the jury known that he had lied on oath and was prepared to lie about his whereabouts on a certain evening, it would have come to a different decision and the trial would have come to another end.Mr Tench says: 'This seems pretty straightforward.
I cannot conceive how a civil court could conclude that had a jury known the full evidence, they would not have come to a different verdict.
Indeed, the judge at the criminal trial said as much before sentencing Archer.'A significant part of the full evidence, of course, being the unused fake alibi contained in the letter written by Mr Francis.
His lawyer, sole practitioner Henri Brandman -- whose previous clients include pop star Gary Glitter, footballer John Fashanu and boxing promoter Frank Warren -- explains that the reasons his client dragged up 12-year-old history, provoking a major criminal trial in the process, were nothing but altruistic.'At the time [1999] Lord Archer was the Tory candidate for London mayor,' says Mr Brandman.
'It was looking increasingly likely that he would be elected, and Mr Francis became concerned that he was not a fit and proper person to be mayor of London.'At the trial, Mr Francis told the court that a few months prior to the libel trial, Lord Archer told Mr Francis that a false alibi was needed to assist him in 'matrimonial problems', and he accepted this until Michael Crick, Lord Archer's unofficial biographer, suggested to Mr Francis many years later that the real reason was in fact to provide an alibi for his libel trial.'Going to the News of the World [in a deal brokered by publicist Max Clifford] was not a decision that he took lightly,' stresses Mr Brandman, who was recommended to Mr Francis by News International's legal manager, Tom Crone.As part of its investigation, the News of the World used a classic tabloid 'sting', taping a phonecall between Archer and Mr Francis where Archer admitted to asking for the false alibi.
Mr Brandman points out that if Mr Francis had bypassed the papers and gone direct to the police, there would not, arguably, have been the same evidence before the court.Charged with perverting the course of justice, Mr Francis was later cleared in court.Mr Francis is now a free man, but for Lord Archer, despite his incarceration, the legal circus is still an ongoing concern -- not only is he fighting the £2.2 million civil claim, but according to his lawyers, an appeal against his conviction will be lodged.
However, the details of the appeal are unclear, and many lawyers are sceptical of its chances.'Nobody so far has convincingly suggested any fault in the proceedings, and I can't see the Court of Appeal having much sympathy,' says Mr Tench.
'Archer may argue that the press reporting meant that he could not have a fair trial, and his counsel made an application at the start of the case to this effect.
However, the judge rejected this application and the fact that the jury took an unusually long time to deliberate on their verdict -- even returning to ask the judge more questions -- seems to show that they were focusing on the right issues, and were not influenced by media reports.
It appears that Lord Archer did have a fair trial.'Perhaps the biggest irony of the whole, rather incredible, legal tangle is that the on e thing that could have saved Archer is also the one thing that probably sealed his fate.
'Not taking to the stand was fatal,' says Dan Tench.
'Once we heard that he wouldn't be giving evidence, a sentence seemed inevitable.'Mr Attfield says that Archer could 'pull rabbits out of hats' on the witness stand, and although admitting that the Crown's documentary evidence against him was so strong 'that he couldn't possibly have stood up to being cross-examined on it', Mr Tench says that 'his evidence was fundamental to the 1987 trial, where he charmed the jury into believing him'.Charming juries, and indeed charming politicians, media moguls, movers and shakers may have been Archer's past stock in trade, but one suspects that for his new life inside Belmarsh prison -- not to mention the legal battles ahead -- mere charm will not suffice.
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