by antiaristo » Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:26 am
Surely no coincidence?<br><br>Lord Mishcon<br>August 14, 1915 - January 27, 2006<br><br>Solicitor who gave legal advice to Diana, Princess of Wales, having begun his practice in a rented room in Brixton<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2015852,00.html">www.timesonline.co.uk/art...52,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Mishcon was seen as instrumental in Archer’s victory over the Daily Star, in which the peer was awarded £500,000 libel damages. The newspaper claimed that Archer had slept with a prostitute and Archer’s counsel demanded huge damages for “a public figure who has been crucified by a popular newspaper”. Archer won; but his legal team had been deceived. In November 1999 Ted Francis admitted having provided a false alibi for Archer and in due course charges were brought. In prison in October 2002, Archer agreed to pay the newspaper more than £1,850,000 in an out-of-court settlement.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><br>The prostitute had a name: Monica Coghlan. She resorted to selling her body for one reason only - to provide for her two children. Like Jill Dando, Monica Coghlan was murdered by Lord and Lady Archer ahead of his trial for perjury and perverting the course of justice.<br><br>Lord Mishcon died a very unhappy man.<br><br>Those interested are refered to "Please Do Not Post" in the Data Dump. The "Ted Francis" story was a fabrication by Murdoch, as a favour to the Windsors. <br><br>Added on edit<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The three angry women ... <br><br>...and the damning stories they told.<br><br>Special report: Jeffrey Archer <br><br>Friday July 20, 2001<br>The Guardian <br><br><br>The prostitute<br><br>Monica Coghlan was the greatest victim of Jeffrey Archer's lies. Her involvement with him left her reputation forever tarnished; like Christine Keeler her name became synonymous with prostitution, but unlike Keeler there was no glamour in her trade, no Snowdon to take her portrait. <br>According to Mr Justice Caulfield, trial judge at Archer's infamous 1987 libel action, Coghlan provided "cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel room". <br>He called her piteous, and she was portrayed as the apogee of vice, in contrast to Mary Archer, apparently the embodiment of virtue. The stain stayed with her for the rest of her life; 14 years later in her home town of Rochdale people still whispered behind their hands when she went shopping. <br>One of seven children, she was born in Greater Manchester in 1951 and suffered a troubled childhood, quitting school at 15. <br><br>After leaving home she was the victim of a violent sexual attack and forced to leave the flat in which she was living. She was working as a prostitute at 17, and in the next 18 years was convicted of shoplifting, possession of cannabis and prostitution, and served two prison terms. <br><br>In 1985 she had a son, Robin, and moved into a small bungalow in Rochdale where she lived a double life. <br><br>For most of the week she cared for her son alone following the death of her partner, and at weekends he was left with neighbours or relatives as she went down to London, where she would turn tricks. <br><br>It was on one such trip she became embroiled in the Archer saga. <br><br>She did not know who Archer was until September 1986, when Aziz Kurtha, an Indian businessman, told the News of the World that one of her clients was the deputy chairman of the Conservative party. <br><br>Archer, she said, told her he was a secondhand car salesman after their 10-minute encounter. Coghlan received no more than £6,000 for her part in the newspaper sting, and was initially reluctant to take part at all. Many of the journalists who worked on that story were impressed by her intelligence, and are convinced she was telling the truth. <br><br>She stood by her story until her tragic death in April this year. <br><br>In court she broke down repeatedly, and railed against Archer and the ordeal to which she was being subjected. <br><br>Accused of lying by Robert Alexander QC, Archer's counsel she said: "He's the liar.... Do you know what I've been through for that liar? Just because he's got power and money. <br><br>"You might be big with words, okay, and I might be a prostitute, but I've never harmed anybody, okay, I've just survived all my life. He knows that it's him, he knows it." <br><br>Coghlan stopped working as a prostitute following the trial, and was working as a bingo caller when she was killed in April in a car accident involving an armed robber.<br><br>The secretary<br><br>Angela Peppiatt was a reluctant assassin. As Archer's personal assistant before and during the 1987 libel action against the Star she was deeply entwined in the conspiracy he hatched to win the case, but for 14 years she kept silent about the lies and deceptions she had carried out on his behalf. <br><br>But when police investigating Ted Francis' allegations approached her in December 1999 she realised she had no choice. Her evidence formed the basis of the crown case and made her the key prosecution witness. Over seven days in court she delivered a sensational account of Archer's deceptions and adultery. <br><br>Mrs Peppiatt was hired by Archer in 1985. He was leading a hectic life. As well as the politics and the novels, he had property and theatrical interests, a wife, a mistress and other girlfriends. Divorced from her bankrupt husband, temporarily homeless and with two children at public school to support, Peppiatt found herself coordinating these diverse demands on Archer's time, on a generous salary of £22,000 a year plus expenses. She ran his diary, organised other staff, paid bills from a "picnic basket" of signed chequebooks, wined and dined political and business contacts, bought presents for his girlfriends, and lied on his behalf to his mistress and his wife. <br><br>She helped Archer manufacture trial statements by researching television schedules so he could pretend he was at home watching TV when he wasn't, and organised payments to Stacpoole, banished to Paris during the 1987 libel action. Asked about this she said: "You don't say no to Jeffrey. You're either part of his team, or you're out." Archer turned to her when, under pressure to produce his diaries, he decided to forge one. With deep reservations she did as he asked. What Archer did not know was that she took copies of the forged documents and wrote a statement detailing her actions. She also kept other documents, a habit she had fallen into after her divorce. <br><br>Mrs Peppiatt enjoyed a generous salary and large expenses, and took advantage of Archer's largesse, taking her children on holiday at his expense and paying her credit card bills with his cheques. She wrote out a £10,000 bonus for herself six months after she forged the diary. "I'm deeply ashamed," she said in court. But Archer and his accountants knew what she was doing and tolerated it. Archer gave her £4,000 in bonuses in her first two years of employment and "encouraged" her to spend, she said. <br><br>But in the winter of 1987 he stopped her bonus, salary and expenses cheques, and accused her of spending money on gifts for herself. Mrs Peppiatt quit and took a job with philanthropist Christopher Beckwith, for whom she still works. Archer did not know it at the time, but making an enemy of Angela Peppiatt was a mistake he could not afford . <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/archer/article/0,2763,524519,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/archer...19,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antiaristo>antiaristo</A> at: 1/30/06 3:01 pm<br></i>