The Government hopes to save millions of pounds on court cases as well as saving police time.The fixed penalties would only apply to offences where courts already give fines or those that are dealt with by a formal warning.The consultation document, “Reducing Public Disorder: The Role of Fixed Penalty Notices”, suggests penalties of £50 to £100 for more minor offences and £100 to £200 for more serious ones.The main types of crime that would be targeted, says the paper, are: being so drunk in public that the person has lost self-control; using threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour; displaying writing or signs that are abusive; minor criminal damage, such as spray painting graffiti; disorderly behaviour in public; buying alcohol for anyone aged under 18; drinking alcohol in a banned area such as a city centre that forbids street consumption.The aim of the fines, says the document, “is to ensure that police can put an immediate stop to misbehaviour and provide a swift punishment, and have in their power a real practical deterrent while taking up as little police time as possible.”It adds: “An individual can decide either to pay the fixed penalty, or contest the case in court.”Announcing the plans, Mr Blair said: “The Government is determined to deal firmly with the type of loutish behaviour, often fuelled by alcohol, which has become all too commonplace in our villages, towns and cities.”Fixed penalty notices will enable the police to deal effectively and speedily with minor offences of public drunkenness and disorder, while reducing the time they have to spend on paperwork.”The proposals are a retreat from Mr Blair’s earlier suggestion that louts should be marched to cash dispensers and forced to pay police officers on-the-spot fines.Chief police officers welcomed yesterday’s proposals. Ted Crew, spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “We are delighted to see these new proposals coming forward.”We were actively involved in their preparation and are very keen to give our officers non-bureaucratic powers with the ability to back them up in the event of non-compliance.”John Wadham, director, of Liberty, the civil rights’ organisation, gave the measures a cautious welcome. He said: “It gives people the option to pay up and not bother with the criminal courts.”. Jeffrey Archer couldn’t have scripted it better. The bestselling author began yesterday by being charged with perjury. And he ended it awaiting an audience’s verdict on his guilt or innocence on the opening night of his new play, The Accused

Jeffrey Archer couldn’t have scripted it better.

The bestselling author began yesterday by being charged with perjury. And he ended it awaiting an audience’s verdict on his guilt or innocence on the opening night of his new play, The Accused.
Whether by accident or design, Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare had life imitating art. By the curtain fall at the Theatre Royal in Windsor, the public could hardly tell what was fact and what was fiction.Was he cocking a snook at the authorities, with advertising posters declaring: “See You In Court”? Was it bravado, outrageous PR? Or, as one of his aides said, “an amazing coincidence” his play should open on the day he was to find out if he was to be charged?It was a remarkable real-life production. It began early, in weak sunshine, with a rendezvous with a solicitor from the firm Mishcon de Reya, at Lord Archer’s expensive flat in Peninsula Heights overlooking the Thames in London.The reason for the meeting was simple; after a 10-month investigation by a team of detectives from Scotland Yard led by Detective Superintendent Geoff Hunt, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party was to learn whether he would face charges for allegedly persuading a friend to lie for him during his 1987 libel action against the Daily Star.It was reported that he had asked Ted Francis, a television producer, to provide an alibi for him against the paper’s claim that he had paid off a prostitute, Monica Coghlan, to buy her silence.

Mr Francis came forward with the allegations when his former friend was contesting the position of Conservative candidate for London mayor, 13 years after Lord Archer won the libel case – and £500,000 in damages.In an apparent attempt to outwit reporters who had gathered at central London police stations, Det Supt Hunt had arranged to meet Lord Archer at Wimbledon police station on the outskirts of the capital. The 60-year-old peer and his legal adviser travelled to the station in a chauffeur-driven green BMW, arriving at 9.45am.During the next hour and a quarter, Lord Archer was charged with two counts of perjury, two of perverting the course of justice and one of using a false instrument, thought to be an affidavit or a letter produced during the trial.By the time he emerged, blinking, smiling, and dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, Lord Archer had regained his composure – if he ever lost it. Having been tracked down by reporters and photographers, he appeared unruffled and slipped back into the BMW, bound for his second big appointment of the day – his senior stage debut as Dr Patrick Sherwood, a GP accused of poisoning his wife.The twist in the tale – and Lord Archer has always been fond of twists – is that the evidence is so finely balanced that the audience is asked to act as jury by voting on keypads.By 2pm, Lord Archer was at the theatre and, in spite of having an understudy at the ready, was preparing for a full-scale dress rehearsal. Directed by Val May, the play will run at Windsor, Berkshire, until 24 October, when it will be taken on a national tour, eventually settling in the West End.The receipts from the play could be enormous. “We have got a full house tonight,” a Theatre Royal spokeswoman said yesterday. “We have only got a certain amount of telephones [in the box office] and they are going mental.”Craig Titley, the theatre’s marketing manager, insisted the timing was a coincidence, saying that the planning had taken more than six months, but he admitted it was having a positive effect on ticket sales, adding that the peer was confident “Lord Archer does not seem at all nervous,” he said “He is just totally focused on what he is doing. Of course he had his lines to remember and his positions to learn, much like the rest of the cast.”It is not as though he is not used to performing in front of large crowds It is almost as though he is helping to direct the play.