Lord Archer to appeal

Archer is currently in Wayland prison in Norfolk

Jeffrey Archer is to appeal against his conviction for perjury and perverting the course of justice at his 1987 libel trial.

Appeal papers in Lord Archer's case have been lodged at the Court of Appeal in London.

The former Tory party deputy chairman, 61, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment last month after being found guilty on two counts of perjury and two counts of perverting the course of justice.

He was cleared of one count of perverting the course of justice.

Mary Archer has stood by her husband

The Old Bailey jury decided that he had lied and cheated in his 1987 libel case against the Daily Star, which had printed a story claiming he had slept with prostitute Monica Coghlan.

He was ordered to pay £175,000 costs within 12 months.

Archer's office and his solicitors Mishcon de Reya refused to comment on the appeal.

Media lawyer Mark Stephens told BBC News Online at the time of Lord Archer's sentence that an appeal would cost between £100,000 and £200,000.

He warned that the peer could have his fine increased or his sentence increased, but added: "It is unusual for that to happen."

Two days after being jailed, Archer was allowed to leave prison to attend his mother's funeral in Cambridgeshire with his wife, Mary, and sons William and James.

Police investigation

He was initially sent to the high-security Belmarsh Prison in south-east London, where he spent three weeks before being transferred to Wayland Prison near, in Norfolk, a category C jail.

The decision was made not to send him to an open prison following news of a new police inquiry into the millionaire novelist's financial affairs.

Former Conservative MP Emma Nicholson has called for the Fraud Squad to look into what happened to millions of pounds raised by Lord Archer for the Kurdish people of northern Iraq.

And the Inland Revenue is believed to be investigating claims that he has avoided paying thousands of pound in tax.

Lord Archer's conviction also prompted calls for parliamentary rules to be changed to strip peers convicted of criminal offences of their titles.