Archer to pay back £3m to newspapers

The jailed millionaire author and former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, Jeffrey Archer, is understood to have agreed to pay back more than £3m to newspapers found guilty of libelling him in 1987.

Last year, Archer was sentenced to four years in jail for perjury. He had been found guilty of lying under oath and of forging his diary in an effort to conceal where he was when he was accused of being with Monica Coghlan, a prostitute.

Tom Crone, the News of the World's legal manager, said: "Lord Archer has repaid us all the money we are entitled to from a settlement going back more than 14 years."

A spokeswoman for the newspaper said that it had been paid £362,000.

Lord Archer, who failed last month to win the right to appeal against his conviction for perjury and perverting the course of justice, is also about to settle a £2.8m repayment to the Daily Star newspaper, according to a report yesterday.

There was no official comment from the Express Group, but insiders confirmed that a settlement was on the verge of being agreed.

Lord Archer, the author of bestsellers such as Kane and Abel and Honour Among Thieves, is understood to be worth £60m. He sued the Daily Star over the prostitute story and won £500,000 in damages from the newspaper, a record amount in 1987.

Since Lord Archer's conviction for perjury last year, the Daily Star has been fighting to have the money, plus interest, paid back.

The judge at Lord Archer's trial described it as one of the most serious examples of perjury in English criminal history, and as "an extremely distasteful case".

Meanwhile, Archer has enjoyed his first home visit from his Lincolnshire open prison. He spent yesterday at his home in Grantchester, Cambridgeshire, with his family, and was taken back to prison at 5.30pm.