Jail term led to fall from favour, says Lady Archer
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Mary Archer recounted yesterday how she fell from favour on the social circuit when her husband was jailed for perjury.
Invitations for the scientist and wife of the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party dried up in July last year when Jeffrey Archer was found guilty of lying during his 1987 libel trial against the Daily Star newspaper.
Yesterday, on the third day of an employment tribunal in which Lady Archer is accused of unfairly dismissing her personal assistant, Jane Williams, she said her husband's sentence had "greatly changed" her life and those of her staff.
"Diary matters did not expand. They contracted slightly, not surprisingly because not as many people were asking me to give away prizes at schools and so forth in that particular period," Lady Archer told the Bury St Edmunds hearing. "It tended to decrease because when you are at the eye of the storm like that, things tend to decrease. People stop asking you to do things."
The 57-year-old claimed she had been forced to dismiss Ms Williams last year because she had refused to sign a confidentiality agreement or accept a part-time job.
Yesterday, Lady Archer said that, while staff had to deal with "sackloads" of letters of support after the trial, their general workload was reduced. "A great change in my life and in my staff's lives came with my husband's imprisonment," she said.
Last autumn, she dismissed one employee and changed the hours and conditions of two after a "thorough staff review", she said.
Lady Archer has accused Ms Williams of taking confidential documents, a claim denied by the former personal assistant. Yesterday, she said that Ms Williams had tried to sell her story to the PR agent Max Clifford after she was dismissed.
Ms Williams, 49, who lives near Saffron Walden, Essex, worked at the Archers' home in Grantchester, near Cambridge. She says her former employer was spiteful, gave her insultingly cheap gifts and behaved in a "bizarre" manner.
The tribunal was adjourned until 23 October.