Tommy Sheridan wanted to lie like Jeffrey Archer, court told

Allan Green, national secretary of the Scottish Socialist Party, told the perjury trial at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday that he was shocked by Mr Sheridan's decision to deny he had visited a sex club in Manchester and to pursue a case against the newspaper which had made the allegations.

Mr Green told the jury: "I was appalled on two counts.

"Firstly by Tommy's reckless behaviour, the idea of any politician going to a swingers' club appeared to be unbelievable.

"What troubled me even more was his declared intention to do the same as Tory politician Jeffrey Archer - to go to court and try and prove lies were the truth and the truth was lies."

Archer, a former MP successfully sued a national newspaper which had accused him of having had dealings with a prostitute. Seven years later he was jailed for four years for perjury having been found guilty of lying in the libel case.

Mr Green described how Sheridan had made the his decision because he "couldn't afford" to pull out of his legal proceedings against the News of the World, despite admitting to party colleagues allegations made in the newspaper about his private life were true. Mr Sheridan had expressed concerns that he was "in too deep" to drop the action just three months before the libel case got under way at the Court of Session in Edinburgh in July 2006.

Mr Sheridan denies lying to the courts during his case, which followed the newspaper's claims that he was an adulterer who visited swingers' clubs.

He and his wife Gail, both 46 and from Glasgow, are accused of lying under oath during the successful defamation action.

Mr Sheridan won 200,000 in damages after the newspaper printed the allegations about his private life.

But Mr Green said he had met Mr Sheridan three months before his action against the newspaper began.

They met, along with Colin Fox, at the Golden Pheasant pub in Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire, where Mr Sheridan had spoken of his financial concerns.

Mr Green said: "His concern was that he financially couldn't afford to stop it because now he was in too deep.Colin Fox was trying to reassure Tommy that should he stop the libel, the party would help compensate for any financial loss."

Mr Green said he had met Mr Sheridan to try to persuade him to give up the action, saying he was "snookered" by the existence of hand-written notes and typed minutes of the emergency meeting of the SSP's executive following the publication of an article about a married MSP visiting a swingers' club in Manchester.

The trial has previously heard Mr Sheridan told the meeting he had been at the club and had blamed his visits on "a weakness he had".

Several members of the executive were later cited by the News of the World in the defamation action and ordered to produce the minutes.

Mr Green told the court they were unwilling to do so because they had agreed to keep them "confidential" after Mr Sheridan announced his intention to fight the allegations in court. He said he had gone to the meeting in Lenzie to try to persuade Mr Sheridan to hand the minutes to the court himself - and drop the libel action.

But he said Mr Sheridan was convinced the News of the World's case was on the brink of collapse.

He said: "I was trying to tell Mr Sheridan that I felt the party was in an intolerable position and the minutes should be handed over."

Under cross-examination from Maggie Smith QC, appearing for Mr Sheridan, Mr Green was asked why he had told the libel trial he "thought I had probably destroyed" the minutes.

He said he thought he was talking about the hand-written minutes, which had been stored in his house, and not the typed version.

He said the notes would not normally have been kept by the party and had thought they would have been destroyed, and he accused the lawyer of "throwing mud about".

The trial also heard from former Lothians MSP Mr Fox, who said Sheridan was left "disappointed and angry" by the executive committee's decision to ask him to resign.

Mr Fox described Sheridan as "a friend, a colleague and a close political ally".

"Someone I looked up to, someone I was inspired by. I saw him as a formidable political figure. I had great regard for him," he said.

The trial continues.