By TERRI JUDD in London
Jeffrey Archer's disastrous week did not improve yesterday, when more than £1.5 million ($5 million) of his money went to the Daily Star.
Express Newspapers announced that the disgraced former Tory Party deputy chairman, now in Lincoln jail after breaching open-prison rules, had settled his libel case
debt.
Fifteen years after the millionaire author was awarded £500,000 in a high-profile libel action against the newspaper, which claimed he had sex with prostitute Monica Coghlan, he returned the money and most of the legal recovery costs.
Counting £750,000 in recovery costs and £300,000 in legal fees, the total is believed to be more than £1.5 million. The settlement, however, is said to fall well short of what Express Newspapers was seeking.
The case would have gone before a High Court judge today, where Daily Star lawyers were to claim £3.6 million in interest and fees.
Despite the shortfall, an Express Newspapers spokesman said last night: "We are satisfied with this."
Archer, 62, was given a four-year jail sentence at the Old Bailey last July.
The court was told he had used a fake diary to win his case and had asked Ted Francis, a friend, to provide an alibi. Within minutes of the verdict, the Daily Star issued a writ.
The news comes at the end of an extraordinary week for the disgraced peer, who was transferred from North Sea Camp open prison to a closed category B jail for not seeking permission to attend a party with his wife at the home of Gillian Shephard, a former Tory secretary of state for education, while on day release.
The situation was compounded by the discovery that he had lunch with an off-duty policewoman and a senior prison officer at Lincoln last Wednesday while working at a local theatre.
- INDEPENDENT
