Archer sent to 'hell jail'

Lord Archer is back behind bars after being sent to a high-security jail after flouting home visit rules to attend a champagne party.

The disgraced former Tory deputy chairman had been in an open prison, serving the remainder of a four-year sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

He went to a party at the Norfolk home of former Tory education secretary Gillian Shephard.

The peer had been allowed out of North Sea Camp open prison for a home visit, but in a clear breach of rules he and wife Mary went to the party 35 miles from his Grantchester home, two weekends ago, without telling prison authorities.

This afternoon Prisoner FF8282 was suffering the consequences of his actions as he was whisked away from the open prison to Lincoln jail.

It means he can expect to be locked up in a shared cell for up to 19 hours a day. His five-days-a-week release to work as a backroom boy at Lincoln's Theatre Royal is at an end. And he will be limited to two prison visits every four weeks, instead of regular trips to his Cambridgeshire home.

North Sea Camp governor Mike Lewis, adjudicating on the case today, concluded Archer could no longer be trusted to act responsibly in open conditions where there is no perimeter wall, cells are unlocked 24 hours a day, and no assaults were recorded last year.

Lincoln jail is significantly overcrowded and has seen assault rates jump sharply in the past year. Last year, prisoners there had fewer than three hours a day purposeful activity in work or education.

Lady Archer defended her husband in an interview at lunchtime, before learning of his jail move. She said: "This was a small lunch party at the house of long-standing family friends and most certainly I was there. Jeffrey came home first and the locality of the lunch is essentially on the way back to prison."

She added: "The general prison rules 1999 say that release is permitted to assist a prisoner in maintaining family ties, to reform links with the community and to make visits in the locality of the prison.

"We were told that he was allowed home and within a 50-mile radius of North Sea Camp, which certainly includes Gillian Shephard's home. Home leave doesn't mean staying only at home. Prisoners are allowed out for picnics, lunches, shopping, whatever.

"Other people were drinking at the party but Jeffrey certainly wasn't, there is no question of that. I should say that he observes the rules punctiliously."

Prison sources believe Archer had been heading for trouble, with ostentatious long lunches at Lincoln's best restaurants and visits to a pub on his way back to jail in the evening. "He has been pushing at the boundaries for a while. He thinks he is so above everything that he can get away with it," a source said.

Archer was undone today by a statement from Gillian Shephard in which she moved swiftly to absolve herself of any blame.

In the statement, Mrs Shephard, Tory MP for South-West Norfolk, said: "We gave a small party for friends at our home in Norfolk 10 days ago. Mary and Jeffrey Archer were invited.

"When they accepted, I naturally assumed that the terms of Jeffrey's conditions to leave from prison permitted him to attend the event. If they did not, that is a matter for Jeffrey and the Prison Service to sort out."

Around two dozen guests attended the party, which spilled out into the grounds of The Old Rectory, the Shephard family home, where for grander occasions the former Cabinet minister puts up a marquee. Guests in the past have included former Prime Minister John Major and his wife Norma.

Archer was jailed in July last year after he was convicted of perjury during a libel case against the Daily Star. He will become eligible for parole next July, at the mid-point of his sentence, but there is no automatic right of release at that point for prisoners serving four years or more.

Sources said a prisoner returned to secure conditions could only go back to an open prison "if they can prove they can be trusted again".

The move raises the prospect of Archer, who has spent 11 of his 14 months behind bars in open conditions, serving out his sentence under a tougher regime.