Jeffrey Archer of Archer's character at the end of each performance. The perjury trial began on 30 May 2001, a month after Monica Coghlan's death in a road traffic accident. Ted Francis claimed that Archer had asked him to provide a false alibi for the night Archer was alleged to have been with Monica Coghlan. Angela Peppiatt, Archer's former personal assistant, also claimed Archer had fabricated an alibi in the 1987 trial. Peppiatt had kept a diary of Archer's movements, which contradicted evidence given during the 1987 trial. Andrina Colquhoun, Archer's former mistress, confirmed that they had been having an affair in
Monica Coghlan Kurtha, a Pakistani businessman who saw him with Coghlan, identified him as Jeffrey Archer, then the Conservative Party's Deputy Chairman. Kurtha sold the story of Archer seeing a prostitute to a tabloid newspaper. Rather than print the unverified story, the paper decided to organise a 'sting' by getting Coghlan to ask Archer for money to stay silent. On 24 October 1986, the "News of the World" filmed and audiotaped Michael Stacpoole, a representative of Jeffrey Archer, giving Coghlan £2,000 in £50 notes on Platform 3 of London's Victoria Station to leave the country to avoid reporters. Coghlan earned £6,000 from