Tabloid Accused Archer of Sex With Prostitute : British Author Awarded $800,000 in Libel Case

Ending a libel trial that captivated the nation, an English jury awarded popular novelist Jeffrey Archer $800,000 in damages Friday, finding that a London newspaper had falsely accused him of engaging in sex with a prostitute.

The judgment against the Star, a mass-circulation tabloid, and its editor, Lloyd Turner, was the largest ever awarded to a libel plaintiff by an English jury. The newspaper was also ordered to pay legal costs estimated at more than $1 million.

The award, coming to Archer after months of personal turmoil and an emotional, 14-day courtroom drama, was the latest in a series of dramatic events that have marked the 47-year-old writer’s mercurial career as a politician, businessman and author.

“I’m very pleased; I feel great,” Archer said as he left the courtroom with his wife, Mary.

Forced to Resign

Archer burst into the public eye in the 1960s, when he was elected to Parliament at age 29. He gained prominence as a Conservative Party figure in the House of Commons but was forced to resign when a failed business venture left him $700,000 in debt.

He began writing novels to pay off bills, and the result was a string of best-sellers, including “Kane and Abel,” “The Prodigal Daughter” and “First Among Equals.” Two years ago, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher chose him as deputy leader of the Conservative Party, and he had only just altered his Who’s Who entry from “author and has-been politician” back to “politician and author” when the present scandal broke last October in the News of the World, a Sunday newspaper.

After the verdict, which the Star said it would appeal, Archer declined to say if he would reenter politics.

Libel Suit Pending

Archer has a libel suit pending against the News of the World but took action against the Star first because of its more direct allegation. He is claiming additional aggravated damages from the 1.3-million circulation Star because of its trial coverage.

The News of the World set off the affair under a headline asserting, “Tory Boss Archer Pays Off Vice Girl.”

The News of the World published photographs of an Archer aide handing an envelope containing money to a prostitute on a London railway platform, but the newspaper was less explicit about an alleged sexual encounter than was the Star.

Under English libel law, a newspaper must prove the truth of its allegations.

Blackmail Charged

Archer admitted that he had, through an aide, paid money to Monica Coghlan, a 36-year-old prostitute, after she had telephoned him and threatened him with blackmail, but he denied that he had ever met her.

The News of the World eventually paid Coghlan $9,600 for her story, and the Star reportedly paid $3,200 for her version of the story, according to statements made in court.

Archer told the court: “I have never met this girl, I have never had sexual intercourse with her and that is the truth. I am innocent of this charge.”

$80 Offer Reported

Coghlan testified that Archer had approached her in a well-known red-light district of London’s fashionable West End and offered her $80. She then said they had gone to a nearby hotel and engaged in sex.

When asked in court how she could be positive that her client was Archer, she responded, “I’d no difficulty seeing his face.”

At one point, Archer’s wife was called to describe the condition of her husband’s skin, after Coghlan related that her client’s back had been rough and spotty.

“Jeffrey has an excellent skin, sir,” she told the judge. “He has no spots or blemishes anywhere.”

Mary Archer, often near tears, then went on to describe where Archer’s recently acquired Aegean suntan began and ended.

Error in Judgment

Archer called his decision to pay off Coghlan a gross error of judgment and, repeatedly denying having engaged in sex with her, told the court, “I made a fool of myself, but I’m no liar.”

For many, the entire affair seemed right out of the pages of one of Archer’s popular novels, known for their successful mix of intrigue and high-level politics, sprinkled with sex.

In one of Archer’s biggest sellers, “First Among Equals,” a leading member of Parliament succumbs to the temptations of an attractive prostitute and is subjected to blackmail. In the novel, the member of Parliament describes himself to the prostitute as a used car salesman. Coghlan said her client told her the same thing.

Resigns Party Post

As the story exploded across Britain’s political landscape, Archer quickly resigned his post as deputy Conservative Party chairman but steadfastly denied that he had ever engaged in sex with a prostitute.

At times, the trial seemed to focus as much on the dubious practices of the racy English tabloid press as on the specifics of the Archer case.

Archer’s chief attorney, Robert Alexander, told the court that democracy requires a free press but that “limits and boundaries” are needed.

He charged that the News of the World and the Star paid Coghlan money and that a News of the World reporter posed to Coghlan as a friend of Archer to gain her confidence. Then, he asserted, others from the paper coached her to lie to Archer in telephone conversations and eventually set up a payoff, which the newspaper photographed.

Risk of Frame Seen

“Journalist methods like this create a terrible risk of a man being framed,” Alexander said.

In two days of summing up for the jury, Judge Bernard Caulfield, 73, seemed to leave little doubt about his own personal sentiments.

Noting the loyalty of Archer’s wife, Caulfield told the jury: “Your vision of her will probably never disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have--without the strain of this trial--a radiance?”

After asking the jury to consider if the Archers were happily married, he reminded the panel that the plaintiff and his wife had recently celebrated their 21st wedding anniversary, then later asked, “Is he (Archer) in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel?”

4 1/2 Hours of Deliberation

It took the jury of eight men and four women 4 1/2 hours to decide that the answer to that question was no.

In spite of the verdict, Coghlan, a petite brunette who frequently broke down under intense questioning, is certain to gain the kind of notoriety that has clung to other play-for-pay women linked to prominent Conservative politicians of the recent past. These include Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, both tied to the 1963 scandal that forced Tory War Minister John Profumo’s resignation, and Norma Levy, who was linked to Undersecretary for Defense Lord Lambton 10 years later.

While Archer’s political career remained uncertain in the wake of Friday’s verdict, there was little doubt about the trial’s impact on his literary success.

Book Sells Briskly

His most recent paperback, “A Matter of Honor,” which was released in Britain a week before the trial opened, is only the second British book to sell more than one million advance copies, according to Colin Davis, United Kingdom sales director for the publisher, Hodder & Stoughton Paperbacks.

“The trial has given us publicity we could not possibly have paid for ourselves,” he said.

As for Britain’s tabloid press, it had already begun to lose interest during the trial’s final days. In many cases, the front-page story was Joan Collins’ divorce trial in Los Angeles, with Archer’s proceedings relegated to the inside pages.