JAILED peer Jeffrey Archer put on a shocked expression over the weekend - when a woman prison officer playfully threatened him with a MissWhiplash-style punishment.
JAILED peer Jeffrey Archer put on a shocked expression over the weekend - when a woman prison officer playfully threatened him with a Miss
Whiplash-style punishment.
The red-headed warder made the multi-millionaire novelist smile by taking off her belt and holding it taut behind her back, as if she was about to beat
him with it.
Archer, 62, known as Prisoner FF8282, earned himself the ticking off by
arriving seven minutes late at his Hoxon House cell unit in Hollesley Bay
open prison near Woodbridge.
Inmates are normally allowed a two-hour association period to wander around the prison's 1,500 acres of grounds between 9.30am and 11.30am at
weekends.
But Archer was the last prisoner to return to Hoxon House when he walked
back into the redbrick cell block at 11.37 am on Saturday.
He was delayed because he had been working in his job at the prison library until 11am and than had to pop into a storeroom to collect his week's supply of toiletries and teabags for his cell.
An onlooker said: "The woman guard was waiting at the end of the path to his cell unit to informally check that all the prisoners were getting back in
time.
"Archer came walking up the road far more briskly than usual because he must have known he was a little late and he did not want to get into any
trouble.
"The warder then walked on the path with him for about 20 yards and chatted to him as they approached the unit.
"Just as he was about to walk in, she swiftly unbuckled her black Prison
Service belt and held it tight between her hands with her radio still
attached to the end.
"She looked like she was about to teach him a lesson for being late by
whipping him. It was all done in fun and Archer joined in the joke by
looking like a naughty schoolboy who was about to be disciplined.
"She had a big grin on her face as she was doing it and was still smiling
when she put her belt back on.
"I think she realised that he had a good excuse to be late because he had
been working in the library lending out books to other prisoners."
The last time Archer was punished in prison was when he broke rules by not getting permission to attend a party given by former Tory education
minister Gillian Shephard while he was on home leave from his North Sea
Camp open prison near Boston, Lincolnshire.
He was moved to tough Lincoln Prison where he was locked up in his cell for 22 hours a day.
Archer spent three weeks in the high security until October 17 when he was
sent to Category D Hollesley Bay, nicknamed Holiday Bay because of its easy-going regime.
Archer was allowed out of prison yesterday to celebrate New Year three days early with wife Mary and his two sons at his home The Old Vicarage in Grantchester, near Cambridge.
He had to spend Christmas Day in prison as he has served less than half his four year sentence for perjury and
perverting the course of justice, and he is only allowed a maximum of two days out a month - only be taken at weekends.
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