So that's what he was up to when he wasn't out for lunch

Jeffrey Archer will make £200,000 from his jail diaries. And the Prison Service is not amused, describing the disgraced peer as a 'pain in the backside'. By Sophie Goodchild

Jeffrey Archer looks certain to face an increased jail sentence and a disciplinary investigation over his decision to include details of fellow inmates in his prison diaries. The disgraced Tory peer will this week publish a lurid account of life inside one of Britain's toughest prisons, revealing details of drug dealing, physical abuse of inmates and intimidation by gang leaders.

A Prison Diary chronicles the three weeks Archer spent at Belmarsh maximum security prison in south London, sharing the exercise yard with Jill Dando's killer Barry George and Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber. Macmillan, the millionaire's publishers, have confirmed that the diaries do name fellow inmates, which is strictly forbidden under prison rules.

Senior prison officials intend to scrutinise the book, the first in a series of four, for evidence that Archer has breached his terms of imprisonment. They are incensed that over-stretched resources are once again being wasted on investigating Archer, who keeps disregarding prison rules. One source said: "He's a pain in the backside. We have far more important issues to deal with."

The diary will be serialised this week in the Daily Mail,which said no payment has been made to Archer for the rights to publish extracts from the book. Instead, the paper has agreed to make a donation to drug rehabilitation and victim support charities.

Archer is expected to earn between £200,000 and £300,000 in royalties for the book, which is critical of the penal system. In an excerpt written on 23 July 2001, four days after his sentencing, he compares British jail conditions with those of Turkey and Kosovo and describes a 17-year-old boy in the cell below him who has been charged with shoplifting. "This same young man will now be spending at least a fortnight with murderers, rapists, burglars and drug addicts. Are these the best tutors he can learn from?"

At one point, Archer contemplates suicide. "They've now supplied me with a Bic razor and I consider cutting my throat. But the thought of failure is just too awful to contemplate."

His description of being strip-searched reads like a shopping list for Harrods and is unlikely to win him the sympathy of his fellow inmates. "I'm told to strip off my clothes. 'Aquascutum, Hilditch & Key and YSL,' says the officer."

Martin Narey, the director general of the Prison Service, yesterday said he was taking legal advice to determine whether Archer had breached prison rules. "He can't make money while he is a serving prisoner from publications and I have a duty to protect the privacy of other prisoners and members of staff. He has to respect that," Mr Narey told the BBC's Today programme. The prison chief said that disciplinary action could lead to Archer losing his privileges and having days added to his sentence if the behaviour was considered "very serious".

The Independent on Sunday reported last week that Archer was acting as a prison grass in return for material for his next novel when he was caught lunching a prison security chief and a female police officer at an Italian restaurant. He was transferred to Lincoln Prison after details of the lunch emerged. The Prison Service is also still investigating claims that he attended a champagne party hosted by Gillian Shephard, a former Tory minister, while on home leave.

Richard Charkin, the chief executive of Macmillan, confirmed the author had named certain fellow inmates in the diary, which he said was the "most important book" in Archer's life. Mr Charkin denied his client was profiting from his crime and said Archer had received no advance for the work. "It's not the law. These are prison rules which may or may not have been broken. I think if he faces retribution on this, it will be an absolute disgrace," said Mr Charkin. "It is critical of the penal system, but that should be no reason for penalising him."

The Prison Officers' Association said it condemned the fact that Archer will profit from his crimes."We believe prison should rehabilitate – there has obviously been no rehabilitation of Jeffrey Archer, judging from his actions," said Colin Moses, the chairman of the POA.

Labour MPs have also condemned Archer's decision to serialise his account of prison life in a tabloid newspaper. Peter Bradley, MP for the Wrekin, said he would refer the Daily Mail to the Press Complaints Commission. "It would be extraordinarily difficult to demonstrate that there is an overpowering public interest in Archer's writings," he said. "If he felt compelled to publish them, he could have done so on his release."

John Cryer, MP for Hornchurch, will also table a House of Commons motion condemning publication of Archer's diaries. "I always though it was a principle that people should not be able to profit from their crimes," he said. "Archer is clearly doing exactly that."

Dear diary...

Exclusive! Using his brilliant network of contacts and deploying all his skill and experience in the dogged world of investigative journalism, Charles Nevin has gained access to prison diaries written by Jeffrey Archer which may reveal more than those in any other publication.

Belmarsh Prison

19 July 2001

Well, here we are. Not a bad journey, even though, as I told the driver, he could have knocked off a good 15 minutes if he'd gone through Peckham and then down through Woolwich, turning up the A2041. He didn't seem too impressed. I must say I wasn't too impressed by the strip search, particularly when the warder shone a torch up one of the most intimate parts of my anatomy. I asked him what he thought he was doing and he said he was making sure I hadn't got a pencil up there, as that was the last thing anyone would want me to have. Everybody thought that was very funny. I laughed, too, although I wasn't really amused. Perhaps my idea of going to prison voluntarily to research my next book isn't a good one, after all. Slept well, though. Always do.

22 July 2001

Settling in nicely. Small cell, but on my own, so don't have to share basin and loo. Rather similar to where Mary puts me in Grantchester, and certainly much better than anything I remember at Eton. Food pretty basic: you wouldn't catch me with shepherd's pie too often outside, I can tell you. Still it's better than anything I remember at Harrow.

25 July 2001

Here I am, looking around me at the four grey walls that surround me... Hmm. That's rather good, isn't it? Glad the old Archer literary touch hasn't entirely deserted me. Things a bit complicated here, though. I don't know whether I mentioned that I have been appointed special envoy around the prison, with carte blanche to visit any prisoner. Typically, I take them all a tea bag when I visit. Next, apparently, I'm to be Lavatory Tsar with full plenipotentiary powers. Anyway, the problem is that somehow Wally Grout, nice chap, but with a slightly unnerving stare, south London crime lord, has got hold of the idea that I'm springing him tomorrow night with the aid of a large crane, six trampolines and a troupe of Romanian asylum-seeking acrobats! I ask you: how could I do that, particularly when I'm going to be rather tied up with Ronnie Biggs, 230 bedsheets and guiding the Chinook down?! Probably just as well I've decided to extend my research to Wayland Prison in Norfolk. And after that, if all goes well, an open one!

Quite Near North Sea Camp Open Prison, Lincs.

25 October 2001

Here I am, then, staring through the window at that little tent of blue which prisoners call a BMW. Hmm, that's rather good, too. I must say I'm not finding prison anything like as bad as old Johnny Aitken said it would be. Between ourselves, I'm not sure he should be altogether trusted. Any system where you can get the governor to leave the restaurant and feed your meter so that the langoustines don't get cold must be doing something right. Must close now, as we are to be joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Gordon Ramsay, Simon Schama, Max Bygraves and John and Edwina.

Not Quite So Close To North Sea Camp, Lincs.

17 September 2002

New York, New York, it's a hell of a town. Make a note of that, too. Wonderful place. What sights! The warders are loving it, especially Ellis Island, although some of them say they preferred Rio, or Sydney. But it's the US for me: no petty jealousy of success here, no agonising over minute and ancient inconsistencies in one's life story book, nb Mr Michael Crick! And they are very keen. Very keen to transfer my production of my latest work, J Archer: The Word Man of North Camp, by J Archer, straight from the Theatre Royal, Lincoln, on to the Great White Way! Bit of a dilemma, now, though: Bush wants a debriefing on my night raid on Basra during the last Gulf show, but I've promised Gillian Shephard I'll paper her back bedroom. What a life!

Lincoln Jail.

Thursday 3 October

Whoops! You're not going to believe this! I've been on retreat here for a few weeks, anxious to take some thinking time out of the hurly-burly of my busy life, and to finish my brilliant short story about Belmarsh, which the Daily Mail is, understandably, most anxious to publish. But now I've had the word that it's too upbeat, too full of my love of life, too affirmative. What they're after, apparently, is "a harrowing account of a perjurer's humiliation and a haunting insight into prison life". To work, then. Honestly, you couldn't make it up!