How a lunch cost Jeffrey Archer his liberty

For the guest of honour, it must have seemed the perfect invitation. Lunch in a charming Norfolk rectory and a return to polite society complete with "wholesome fare" and some late summer sunshine.

To make it even more tempting, this Sunday garden party hosted by a former Cabinet minister was ideally located – less than hour's drive from Her Majesty's Prison North Sea Camp.

Unfortunately for Prisoner FF8282, better known outside the Home Office as Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, peer of the realm and convicted perjurer, it was also a social occasion too far.

The novelist was last night transferred from the relaxed conditions of the open jail where he has spent the past nine months to the austere confines of the 130-year-old Lincoln Prison for breaching rules governing home visits by attending a social lunch.

Among the rigours awaiting the millionaire inmate as punishment last night were the prospect of a shared cell splattered with encrusted food, just two hours of access to open air each day, and evening meals served at 4.15pm.

Just 24 hours earlier, Jeffrey Archer had been enjoying the benefits of a regime which allowed him to umpire the prison's cricket XI and to drive five days a week in his BMW to work as a scenery shifter and tea-maker in a theatre.

The decision by the Prison Service to return Archer, 62, to the equivalent of a Category-B jail, was for a "serious breach of trust". In other words, too much partying and too many long lunches.

His latest troubles started 12 days ago when he attended a gathering of about two dozen East Anglian denizens at the home of Gillian Shephard, the former Conservative education and employment secretary. Mrs Shephard, a close family friend, had extended the invitation to the peer and his famously loyal wife, Mary, after Archer had been granted weekly access to his home at Grantchester, near Cambridge.

The Archers drove the 35 miles from Grantchester to Mrs Shephard's home, a tastefully appointed former vicarage in the village of Northwold, near Thetford, in Jeffrey's black BMW. They arrived at around 1pm.

This left plenty of time for the 50-mile drive back to keep the curfew at North Sea Camp, near Boston in adjoining Lincolnshire, where Archer was 14 months into a four-year jail sentence for perjuring himself during his 1987 libel victory over claims that he slept with a prostitute.

For the peer, it was another step on the road to rehabilitation, if not as a fully respectable member of a high society he once stalked as vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, then at least as a colourful character on the rural party circuit.

Contrary to claims that it was a champagne-fuelled shindig thick with Tory bigwigs, Mrs Shephard told The Independent that her "small lunch party" had been entirely devoid of bubbly or grandees, apart from herself.

Indeed, Archer, once famed for his dinner parties consisting of vintage Krug champagne and shepherd's pie, was so aware of the rules of his licence that he had stuck to a puritan tipple. Mrs Shephard said: "The only thing Jeffrey drank was water and I can tell you it was tap water in jugs because I don't believe in bottled mineral water. There was no champagne, the food was nice, wholesome fare, and as far as we can tell it doesn't seem to have been attended by anyone whose name could be remotely interesting.

"It was a personal and private party, not a political one. You even could say this was the party to miss."

They were words that had a particularly bitter resonance for one abstemious former MP sitting in his cell at the heart of the cathedral city of Lincoln.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "There has been a serious breach of trust by Lord Archer by not abiding by the terms of his licence. Lord Archer has admitted attending the party. We are also concerned about some aspects of his alleged activities whilst on temporary release in Lincoln. While we consider his future location, he has been relocated to Lincoln Prison."

Under Prison Service rules, a prisoner under a Category D or open prison regime can be released under licence for one home visit per week for up to two days.

A spokesman said: "The terms of that licence might allow the person to move within close proximity to their home, for example to walk the dog or go to a local shop. But they do not allow for going a considerable distance to attend a party."

Quite how Archer's presence at the Northwold party became known was unclear, although suspicion centred on the theory that he let slip the fact to fellow prisoners who duly informed The Sun newspaper.

Prison Service sources said they were examining claims that he had been seen lunching in restaurants in Lincoln four times in a five-day period, including a 90-minute meal in an Italian bistro.

Mrs Shephard, 62, was nursing a broken leg last night suffered while walking – rather than kicking furniture in frustration at her one-time political ally's error. She said: "I naturally presumed that the terms of Jeffrey's conditions of leave from the prison permitted him to attend the event."

Lady Archer also made her indignation plain. Speaking before the news that her husband was being moved, she said such an action would be "outrageous" and smacked of unfair treatment of the peer because of his celebrity status. Archer had been under the impression that his licence allowed him to go anywhere within a 55-mile radius of North Sea Camp, including Mrs Shephard's home, Lady Archer insisted.

As his cell was being unlocked at 7.30am today, the novelist will at the very least be ruing the disappearance of the routine he had adopted at his open prison.

When not working at the Theatre Royal, he had been apparently used to spending eight hours a day working on his prison memoirs and latest novel. In addition to visits from friends, including Michael Portillo, he also had access to a small television in his single room as well as spending one period earning £8.50 a day as an orderly in the prison clinic.

Prison Service sources made clear his chances of returning to such an environment, as well as obtaining early parole, hung in the balance.

One official said: "Depending on how he is assessed, he may eventually return to an open regime. It is equally possible, however, that it will be decided he is too much of a risk and should spend the rest of his sentence in a closed prison."