Archer switches prisons

Archer will be subject to most normal prison restrictions

Lord Archer has left high-security Belmarsh Prison for a jail in Norfolk, the Prison Service said.

Archer has been transferred to Wayland Prison near Watton, a Category C jail.

The disgraced peer and millionaire novelist spent the last three weeks in the high-security south east London jail after being sentenced to four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

Lord Archer was allowed out of prison for his mother's funeral

He was driven out of Belmarsh at 1010BST on Thursday and spent two-and-a-half hours on the road.

Archer served exactly the same period of time at Belmarsh as his predecessor, the disgraced former Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitken.

Wayland's most notorious inmate was Reggie Kray, released from there in August last year shortly before he died of bladder cancer, after serving more than 30 years for the killing of Jack "The Hat" McVitie.

It emerged last week that Archer will not be sent to an open prison as was initially expected, after his re-classification as a higher security risk.

Prison sources told the BBC that the decision followed news of a new police inquiry into the millionaire novelist's affairs.

Prison restrictions

As a category D prisoner, Archer could have been placed in an open prison without a perimeter fence where inmates are trusted not to abscond.

At his category C prison, Archer will be subject to most normal prison restrictions, although his wife will only face a 45-minute drive from their Grantchester home.

An Old Bailey jury found Archer guilty of lying and cheating in his 1987 libel case against the Daily Star.

He was sentenced to four years for two counts of perjury and two of perverting the course of justice.