Jane Williams worked for Lady Archer for 13 years

Jane Williams, 49, said she faced mounting legal bills after refusing to sign a confidentiality agreement with the Archers.

The former aide is defending a breach of confidence claim brought by the wife of the jailed peer, her boss for 13 years until she was dismissed in November 2001.

Lady Archer claims her PA passed a story about her secret face-lift to the national press, leading to a story in the Sunday Mirror in February 2002.

Ms Williams told the High Court: "I would not have disclosed confidential sensitive trade secrets. But I certainly had an interesting job and I feel that a lot of people would be interested in the experiences I had been through over 13 years."

If I had spoken to the press before now I could have paid off my mortgage long ago Jane Williams

The court heard Lady Archer told Ms Williams to be wary of press attention when she got the job.

Ms Williams said: "I was, regularly, because we did tend to lurch from scandal to scandal and I never disclosed anything to the press.

"I stand by the fact that I maintained confidentiality throughout those years."

Although she knew her story had commercial value, she reassured Lady Archer of her silence before Lord Archer's trial for perjury.

"I said, Mary, if I had spoken to the press before now I could have paid off my mortgage long ago."

'Sensitive and intimate'

Ms Williams said she understood Lady Archer's concerns about confidentiality and was worried that her ex-partner had tried to damage her position as PA with the Archers.

He had threatened to contact Lady Archer when he was blackmailing Ms Williams about "sensitive and intimate" e-mails between Lady Archer and Professor Stephen Feldberg.

Archer warned aide to be wary of press attention

But it was after she made a statement in support of the prosecution in Lord Archer's trial that she felt everything changed between herself and Lady Archer.

She denied beginning to build a dossier of documents with a view to telling her story.

But she said she kept some information relating to her employment position after Lady Archer wrongly accused her of talking to the press in July 2001.

It was after refusing to sign a wide-reaching confidentiality agreement which would have bound her "hand, foot and finger" that she took legal advice.

'Squeezed out deliberately'

She told the court: "I would not be able to speak about anything - either confidential or non-confidential.

"I was in the process of running up a huge legal bill. I could see the way the tide had turned and I was being squeezed out deliberately."

"I wanted specifically to be able to tell the public the experiences I had been through since Lady Archer had discovered that I had co-operated with the authorities.

"I felt that it was in the public interest to know how they conducted themselves towards me, and the hardship I have subsequently suffered.

"I thought that they had behaved illegally. They had exposed me to situations that I did not choose to be exposed to - all four members of the family.

"I was put in a position where I had to choose whether I spoke to the police."

She added: "Lord Archer dug his way out of debt by writing. I had a very large legal bill which I wanted to honour. I had a way of dealing with it. I did not see anything wrong with that."

Lady Archer claims Ms Williams had contact with several newspapers and publicist Max Clifford as well as signing an agreement with Associated Newspapers at a price of �50,000.