Open prison for Archer

Jeffrey Archer, the disgraced peer and former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, has been moved to an open prison, three months after being jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

Archer, 61, has been transferred to North Sea Camp in Lincolnshire, which is about 80 miles from his family home at Grantchester, near Cambridge.

He was moved from Wayland Prison in Norfolk after being assessed as a low-risk inmate, who is unlikely to abscond.

As prisoner FF8282 he will be given a key to his cell, which he is expected to share with another inmate,and will be able to let himself out each morning.

Built in 1935, North Sea Camp was originally an open borstal and became an open prison in 1988. It has two living units and two long-term houses, which provide 10 places and each have a lounge, kitchen, television and carpets. The houses are described as antiquated and having "not a stick of prison furniture" in them.

About 2,000 pigs and sheep are kept at the prison farm, where a quarter of the jail's 213 inmates work.

Mark Leech, chief executive of the ex-offenders' charity Unlock, said: "It's considered to be a cushy little place ... he won't have any problems there."