Jeffrey Archer
LONDON - The question before the house - well, at least before New Scotland Yard - is whether novelist/politician Jeffrey Archer obstructed justice concerning a libel suit against a newspaper that accused him of sleeping with a prostitute.
Archer was apparently arrested and released April 7 without being charged, but he's due to return for a police hearing in June. Officially, his name wasn't released, since British law protects a suspect's identity until he's been formally charged with a crime, but the British press wasted no time confirming the arrest.
Archer had won $800,000 damages from a London paper claiming he slept with the prostitute, and if it's proven he lied during that trial, he could be facing the prospect of repaying that money.
The strange tale started in 1986, when the author was the ruling Conservative Party's deputy chairman. He received a message from a prostitute demanding $3,500 be delivered to Victoria Station or she'd tell the tabloids a story. Archer sent the money, with the Daily Star waiting for its arrival.
The case forced Archer out of the British government for the first of four occasions involving scandal, and compelled him to sue the Star. Archer's story was corroborated by the friend who delivered the money, saying Archer had dined with him when the date with the prostitute was supposed to have happened.
A court ruling suggested Archer had merely panicked and sent the money, hoping to settle the affair quietly. But last fall, according to APBNews, the friend, Ted Francis, told the press his corroboration was a lie, prompting a probe into perjury and obstruction of justice. That prompted both an end to Archer's campaign for London's mayoralty and his final expulsion from the Conservative Party.
