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
Jeffrey Archer down as an MP at the October 1974 general election. While he was a witness in the Aquablast case in Toronto in 1975, Archer was accused of stealing three suits from a department store. Archer denied the accusation for many years, but in the late 1990s he finally acknowledged that he had taken the suits, although he claimed that at the time he had not realised he had left the shop. No charges were ever brought. Archer wrote his first book, "Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less", in the autumn of 1974, as a means of avoiding bankruptcy.