Archer appeal over sentence fails

Jeffrey Archer today failed in his attempt to mount a challenge against his conviction for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

Three Appeal Court judges rejected the disgraced peer's case and also threw out an appeal against his four-year sentence on the grounds that it was too harsh.

Archer, prisoner FF8282, did not attend the hearing and remained at the Northsea Camp prison in Lincolnshire.

His absence caused Lord Justice Rose to ask "where is he?" at the beginning of today's proceedings in London.

The only representatives of the Archer family present were his sons James and William.

The millionaire novelist, once a candidate for Mayor of London and former deputy chairman of the Tory party, was found guilty last July.

An Old Bailey jury decided that Lord Archer had lied in his 1987 libel case against the Daily Star which had printed a story claiming he had slept with a prostitute.

Today Lord Justice Rose, sitting with Mr Justice Colman and Mr Justice Stanley Burnton, took just a few minutes to decide against Archer who had sought permission to appeal against his conviction.

Nicholas Purnell, QC, went on to argue that Archer's sentence was too long and that lesser sentences have been given in similar cases. The main element of his case against conviction was that Archer should never have stood trial with his co-defendant, Ted Francis, who was acquitted of perverting the course of justice.

Mr Purnell said that trying the two men together meant the entire proceedings had been "unbalanced".

He said the trial judge, Mr Justice Potts, had ignored the arguments to try them separately which had been "strong and all one way".

The presence of Mr Francis in the dock "overwhelmingly prejudiced the case against Archer," he claimed. Mr Purnell also argued that the 14-year delay between the libel case between Archer and the Daily Star and last year's trial put Archer at an unfair disadvantage.

Also, the prosecution had been unable to produce the original of the diary which Archer depended upon when he won his £500,000 libel action over claims that he slept with prostitute-Monica Coghlan. Instead, the trial relied on photocopies.

Mr Purnell argued that transcripts of phone conversations between Archer and Mr Francis, made at the instigation of the News of the World and which incriminated the peer, should have been thrown out.

Mr Purnell told the Appeal Court judges that "a campaign has continued to this day to vilify Lord Archer in every way possible".

He said there were no economic or practical reason to try Archer with Mr Francis.

Had Mr Francis been tried separately the case could have been dealt with in a week whereas Archer's trial went on for more than two months. "There was no overwhelming public interest for a joint trial," he said.

When Archer was sentenced, the trial judge told him "these charges represent as serious an offence of perjury as I have had experience of and have been able to find in the books".