Lord Archer's former personal assistant thought she was being asked to take part in a "deception" when he asked her to compile a bogus diary for use in his 1987 libel trial against the Star, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
Giving evidence on the fourth day of his trial on charges of perjury and perverting the course of justice, Ms Angela Peppiatt told the jury that Lord Archer approached her in the spring of 1987 and asked her to fill in a blank A4 diary for 1986 with a list of appointments he had drawn up.
Ms Peppiatt, who had worked for Lord Archer since 1985, understood that the A4 diary was to replace his genuine appointments diary for 1986, which she controlled, and that it would be sent to solicitors preparing Lord Archer's case against the Star, the court heard.
She was so concerned by what he had asked her to do that she took photocopies of the blank diaries and wrote a statement confessing her involvement in order to protect herself. Her actions came to light in 1999 when police interviewed her.
Asked why she had taken these steps, Ms Peppiatt told the court: "Because I realised I had become seriously concerned that I was becoming involved in a deception and I needed a form of protection, insurance, and I suppose I thought a piece of paper like this would serve as some sort of protection."
Facing Lord Archer across court eight of the Old Bailey, Ms Peppiatt gave evidence for almost four hours, referring to her former employer as "Jeffrey" throughout. She did not look at the dock from where he stared intently. Presiding judge Mr Justice Potts told her she did not have to answer any questions that could expose her to a criminal charge. "Do you understand?" he asked. "Yes, sir," she replied.
Ms Peppiatt said she agreed to forge the diary after Lord Archer told her his legal team had asked him to produce a bogus diary because of the "political sensitivity" of some of the names in the genuine diary.
"Jeffrey came to me with this piece of paper and a blank diary and asked me to fill in the names on the piece of paper that he had handed me," she said. Ms Peppiatt said the names were in Lord Archer's handwriting and differed in some respects from the entries in his genuine diary.
"Jeffrey asked me to fill in these names in the diary because his diary or diaries had been requested by the lawyers, I remember, for the Star. I'm sure I would have said to him, `Why can't we produce my diary?' I was obviously extremely concerned about this request. In fact, I could barely understand why he was asking me to do it."
Ms Peppiatt said Lord Archer told her to fill in the blank pages relating to September 8th-9th, 1986, the dates on which the Star alleged he had picked up Monica Coghlan, a prostitute. Later, on May 25th or 26th, she alleged Lord Archer asked her to add more entries to the bogus diary for the week September 5th-12th, which she was to copy from Lord Archer's other diary, known as the Economist diary.
Ms Peppiatt said that on the morning of May 26th, 1987, she took the blank diary to a photocopying shop near Lord Archer's apartment in Vauxhall, London. She bought a copy of the Times and photocopied it alongside the blank pages, before returning to Lord Archer's apartment, adding the entries and delivering the bogus A4 diary to the office of Lord Mishcon.