Monica Coghlan class and by the prostitution laws which label and condemn women." Monica Coghlan Monica Coghlan (3 April 1951 – 27 April 2001) was an English prostitute at the centre of a scandal that involved British Conservative politician Jeffrey Archer in 1987. Although he won a libel case against the "Daily Star" newspaper, which had alleged that he had sex with her, it was later established, in legal proceedings in 2001, that he had perjured himself in the trial. Archer was jailed for this in July 2001. Coghlan died in a car crash shortly before the second trial and Archer's subsequent
Jeffrey Archer responded by suing the "Daily Star". The case came to court in July 1987. Explaining the payment to Coghlan as the action of a philanthropist rather than that of a guilty man, Archer won the case and was awarded £500,000 damages. Archer stated he would donate the money to charity. However, this case would ultimately result in Archer's final exit from front-line politics some years later. The description the judge (Mr Justice Caulfield) gave of Mrs Archer in his jury instructions included: "Remember Mary Archer in the witness-box. Your vision of her probably will never disappear. Has she elegance? Has