SEPT 26: Lord Jeffrey Archer, the millionaire novelist and former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, was charged on Tuesday with perverting the course of Justice and perjury, a police spokesman said.Archer is alleged to have asked a friend, Ted Francis, to lie for him in court during a libel case the peer brought against a tabloid newspaper, the Daily Star, in 1987.The allegations emerged at the end of last year when Francis confessed that Archer had asked him to provide a false alibi. Archer was forced to abandon his bid to become Mayor of London in the row, which followed Francis' confession and was expelled from the Conservative Party.The 60-year-old spent one hour and 15 minutes at Wimbledon police station in South London on Tuesday. He was released on bail until October 3, when he is due to appear in court."Jeffrey Archer has been charged with two counts of perverting the course of Justice, two counts of perjury and one count of using a false instrument," a police spokesman said.Archer brought the original libel case when he took exception to a report in the Daily Star that he had paid for sex with prostitute Monica Coghlan. He is alleged to have asked Francis to tell the court the two men were having dinner on the evening he was supposed to have been having a liaison with Coghlan.The visit to the police station on Tuesday came at an inconvenient time for the novelist. He is set to make his acting debut on Tuesday evening in a play he wrote called, appropriately enough, "The Accused".The play is a courtroom drama in which Archer plays a doctor who is suspected of murdering his wife. Archer made no comment as he Left the police station, but a spokeswoman for the Theatre Royal in Windsor, near London, where the play is opening, said the performance was expected to go ahead.
