Millionaire novelist Lord Archer exchanged his luxury penthouse for a prison cell last night after being convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice.
After 14 years, the wheels of justice turned full circle as an Old Bailey jury found the former Tory peer guilty of lying his way to victory in his now-notorious 1987 libel trial.
Having arrived at the famous court in his chauffeur-driven jaguar, Archer was taken by prison van to the top-security Belmarsh jail to begin a four-year prison sentence, of which Mr Justice Potts decreed he must serve at least two years.
Sentencing Archer, the judge said this had been an "extremely distasteful case" involving "as serious an offence of perjury as I have had experience of and have been able to find in the books". He sent him down after hearing prosecution counsel describe Archer as "the author of his own misfortune".
Mr David Waters QC said the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party was a man ruled by ambition who resorted to dishonesty with arrogance when obstacles were placed in his way. "Whatever successive allegation or obstacle he faced, his instinct and solution was to manipulate events and fabricate a dishonest answer," he told the jury.
The one-time aspirant mayor of London and friend to two former Conservative prime ministers was impassive as the jury foreman sealed his fate and his disgrace after the jury's deliberations lasting 23 hours and 39 minutes.
They found him guilty on two charges of perjury and two of perverting the course of justice, acquitting him of perverting the course of justice in relation to entries in an Economist diary.
A cry of "yes" went up in the public gallery and there was cheering in newsrooms across London as the verdict was delivered on a sensational trial revealing a plot more riveting than that of any of his Lordship's famous novels.
At its end, the man once famed for his shepherds pie and Champagne parties at the Conservative conference stood condemned as a liar prepared to use faked diaries and a false alibi to win the libel action against the Daily Star over its claim that he had slept with prostitute Monica Coghlan.
He was finally undone in a classic newspaper "sting" in which Archer was tricked into admitting his deception in telephone calls secretly recorded by his former friend, Mr Ted Francis, and the News of the World.
Mr Francis was cleared yesterday of intending to pervert the course of justice by providing Archer with a false alibi, which was never actually used, for the High Court libel trial. Mr Francis always claimed he had provided Archer with the alibi in an effort to save his marriage. He believed Archer had been with his mistress, Ms Andrina Colquhoun, on the night he was allegedly with the prostitute after telling his wife, Mary, that the affair was over.
After a personal falling-out, and determined to prevent Archer realising his ambition to become London's first elected mayor, Mr Francis revealed the deception in 1999, forcing the then-selected Tory candidate out of the mayoral race and his subsequent expulsion from the Conservative Party he loved.
The former Conservative Party leader, Mr William Hague, originally welcomed the selection of Archer, describing him as a man of "proven integrity". However, following last month's general election defeat, Mr Hague described this as the worst misjudgment of his leadership.
Mr Justice Potts yesterday said Archer would have to pay £175,000 costs within the year. In addition to this - and his estimated £500,000 legal bill - Archer was also facing possible civil actions said to amount to more than £2.2 million by the Daily Star over the 1987 libel victory.
But of more pressing and immediate concern to the fallen Lord - who might also lose his peerage - was the suggestion that the police might wish to interview Lady Archer over her evidence at that time.
In his summing-up in 1987, the late Mr Justice Caulfield famously said of Lady Archer: "Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this, radiance?"
But yesterday, as defence counsel maintained Archer had not compounded his lies with anything he had said to the police or during this trial, Mr Justice Potts demanded: "What about the evidence of Lady Archer?"
He said she had made a statement about remembering an A4 diary at Archer's London office in 1986, forcing the recall of Ms Angela Peppiatt, Archer's former secretary.
Ms Peppiatt had told the court Archer had bought a diary for 1986 and ordered her to fill in names from a piece of paper for engagements on the key September dates as he came under pressure to disclose the diaries he knew would reveal the existence of the false alibi.
Speaking outside the court, Det Supt Jeff Hunt, who led the police inquiry, was asked if there would be any police action in the light of the judge's comments about Lady Archer's evidence.
"I've heard what the judge said. We'll take our time to consider those comments and reflect on them in due course," he replied.
The judge told Archer yesterday he could not ignore evidence before him which, had it been known to the judge and jury in 1987, made it "unlikely in the extreme" that he would have won the libel case. He also could not overlook the fact that Archer had since "gone from strength to strength", noted that he had become a Lord, and said being "noble" also had to be taken into account in sentencing.