Mary Archer evidence at the High Court in a libel case brought by her husband against the "Daily Star" newspaper, which claimed Jeffrey had slept with a prostitute called Monica Coghlan. During his summing up at the end of the trial, the judge, Mr Justice Caulfield, asked: "Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance?" In 2001, when Jeffrey Archer was accused of having committed perjury in the 1987 trial, she appeared at the Old Bailey to defend him. Jeffrey Archer was subsequently convicted and imprisoned for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
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