Lady Archer feared PA would 'drop bombshell' at Jeffrey's trial

Lady Archer was warned that her personal assistant was planning to "drop a bombshell" on her husband's perjury trial, it was claimed yesterday.

On the day that Jeffrey Archer's case began at the Old Bailey, Jane Williams – a trusted aide of his wife's for 13 years – made a statement to police questioning the integrity of one of the witnesses.

Mary Archer claimed that Ms Williams, 49, had been "systematically stealing information" from her for years, on the second day of an employment tribunal which has seen the disgraced peer's wife pitted against her former employee.

"Suspicious" that she plan-ned to take this to the press, the 57-year-old wife of the former Conservative Deputy Chairman claimed she dismissed her assistant last year when she refused to sign a confidentiality agreement or accept a part-time position.

Ms Williams, who denies stealing information or going to the media, insists that she was sacked because she went to the police with information. She is claiming unfair dismissal.

Lord Archer, 62, is serving a four year sentence for perjury after being convicted of lying in his 1987 libel trial against the Daily Star which accused him of sleeping with a prostitute.

On 30 May last year, as proceedings were starting in the Central Criminal Court, Ms Williams told detectives that "an individual" involved in the trial had made two inconsistent statements to her. She also suggested that one of the couple's sons had "inappropriate" contact with another person involved in the trial.

Lady Archer told the tribunal that a close friend of her assistant had suggested that her assistant's motive might have been money.

She said: "Mrs X says that Jane had been in discussions with a journalist that lived in the same village as Jane on how she could make money out of my husband's trial.

"She had been advised that the best move was to wait until the trial started, make some kind of statement to police and drop a bombshell on the trial and afterwards the press would pay her a lot of money for her story."

This had first been told to her by Lord Archer's lawyers at the beginning of June but Mrs X had repeated her claim in early July, Lady Archer claimed.

Lady Archer told the tribunal that once she discovered her assistant had gone to the police she took legal advice and asked Ms Williams to leave her office at the Archer's house in Grantchester, near Cambridge, and work from her own home.

Ms Williams, who lives near Saffron Walden, Essex, agreed to the arrangement and Lady Archer called on her son to collect the assistant's computer to allow them to remove any confidential documents.

She said: "Mrs X alleged that Jane was in contact with a journalist.

"I was extremely perturbed by that although at that stage I had not begun to suspect that Ms Williams had been systematically stealing confidential information for years."

Richard Leiper, counsel for the applicant, retorted: "That is in dispute." To which the millionaire novelist's wife responded: "I have found evidence of it."

It was not until more than a month later, on 8 July, that she finally challenged her employee about the allegations. Ms Williams denied the claim and Lady Archer said she would "investigate" the matter.

After her husband was convicted of perjury on 19 July, Lady Archer, a professor in solar energy, went to two conferences and it was three weeks before she spoke to her personal assistant.

On 17 August the women met and the peer's wife conceded that she had been unable to prove or disprove the allegation. Lady Archer said: "I was a little suspicious but I wanted to move on from that position with the reassurance of confidentiality."

Ms Williams would not sign an agreement and she was later dismissed.

In what has proven to be an acrimonious case, both women have heaped insults on each other. Lady Archer said she had discovered that Ms Williams had been sending "offensive and disparaging" e-mails about her.

The tribunal at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, has been at pains not to disclose certain personal information but the hearing was told Ms Williams had signed off from one of the "rude" e-mails as Anne Robinson's personal assistant.

The tribunal continues.