The Archer trial: Key players

Angela Peppiatt
Angela Peppiatt became Lord Archer's personal assistant in 1985 after he was appointed deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. She was a main witness in the recent trial.

During the perjury trial she told the court that in May 1987 Lord Archer asked her to fill in a blank 1986 diary, using a list of names he provided, and to deliver it to his solicitors. She says this was the diary used during the 1987 libel trial.

Mrs Peppiatt told the court she had kept the genuine diary after she left Lord Archer's employment in December 1987, and handed it to police in 1999.

She said she had photocopied the new diary pages before and after making the entries. The court also heard that she counter-signed a letter with another assistant, Caroline Norman, saying she had acted under Lord Archer's orders.

Michael Stacpoole
Michael Stacpoole was a good friend of Lord Archer's for around 20 years, and worked with him on business and fund-raising deals.

He was a high society PR man who later gained notoriety when he was photographed handing over an envelope of cash to the prostitute Monica Coghlan, on Lord Archer's behalf.

When the Monica Coughlan story broke, Mr Stacpoole left the country.

Monica Coghlan
In 1986 Monica Coghlan claimed that Lord Archer had agreed to pay her £70 for sex. She told her story to the News of the World which then taped Archer on the telephone offering her money to flee overseas.

Lord Archer told Ms Coghlan to go to London's Victoria station to collect the money. Michael Stacpoole was photographed by the paper offering Coghlan a packet said to contain £2000.

The scandal caused Lord Archer to resign from the Conservative party. He sued the Star newspaper, which had alleged he had spent the night with Monica Coghlan.

Lord Archer won the case and £500,000 in damages.

Monica Coghlan died in a car crash in April 2001.

Andrina Colquhoun
Andrina Colquhoun was Lord Archer's mistress and personal assistant in the early 1980s. She was a one-time debutante from a wealthy family, and her past included several glamorous men.

Ms Colquhoun was also a former professional photographer.

She became a political risk for Archer after Cecil Parkinson had resigned from the Cabinet for making his secretary pregnant.

According to Michael Stacpoole, when Margaret Thatcher appointed Lord Archer deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, one of the prerequisites was that he would have to stop seeing Ms Colquhoun.

Angela Peppiatt replaced her as personal assistant to Lord Archer in 1985. However the two continued their relationship for some time before it fizzled out in the late 1980s.

Terence Baker
Mr Baker was Archer's television agent. He gave a crucial alibi in the 1987 trial. Without it, Archer's case would have been badly damaged.

He contradicted Monica Coghlan's allegations about a liaison with Lord Archer. In court he supported Lord Archer's story that the two men were actually chatting together in Le Caprice restaurant at that time.

He said the novelist then gave him a lift back in his Jaguar to his home in South London. Mr Baker died of a heart attack in 1991.