A former personal assistant to Lady Archer has told an employment tribunal that e-mails she sent to friends about her employer were "harmless and light-hearted".

Jane Williams, from Saffron Waldon in Essex, worked at the Archers' home in Grantchester, Cambridgeshire, between 1988 and 2001.

Ms Williams, 49, claims she was unfairly dismissed last year by the wife of the jailed peer.

The tribunal has been told Lady Archer sacked Ms Williams after she refused to sign a confidentiality agreement before Lord Archer's perjury trial last year.

'Offensive'

Lady Archer said she had suspected her PA of "systematically" stealing confidential information, which Ms Williams denies.

Ms Williams says her dismissal was unfair

Lady Archer, 57, told the tribunal in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk last month that the e-mails in question were "offensive and disparaging".

One likened her to television presenter Anne Robinson, host of the Weakest Link.

Lady Archer said she had advised a potential employer not to take on Ms Williams as she was "untrustworthy".

On Wednesday, when the hearing reconvened, Ms Williams agreed that sending the messages while at work was a breach of her contract.

But she said they were "personal exchanges between me and my friends" and would not have fallen into the hands of the media.

Flat champagne

Earlier, Lady Archer's lawyer Thomas Linden suggested that Ms Williams had been attempting to "slur" his client's character by mentioning "irrelevant" details for the benefit of the tabloid press.

These included references to "insulting and embarrassing gifts" including the offer of a glass of flat champagne on her birthday.

Ms Williams maintained in her statement to the hearing that Lady Archer had become more difficult to work for from 1995.

On several occasions, Lady Archer had appeared to suggest she might look to work elsewhere, she said.

Ms Williams told the three-member panel that a P45 arrived unexpectedly in the post one morning, and she had not been told a meeting was in fact going to be a disciplinary hearing.

Taped conversations

The tribunal has also been told "Mrs X", a friend of Ms Williams, had said she could make a statement to police about Lord Archer during his perjury trial, and then sell the story.

Ms Williams accepted she did make a statement and that it might have been viewed as "disloyal", but said it had not been used in Lord Archer's trial.

She admitted taping conversations with her employer after making the statement, saying she acted on police advice.

Ms Williams admitted that in 1996 she had passed on a database containing names of guests at a party at the Archers' to her former partner.

She said she agreed that it had been a breach of confidentiality and added that she had "immediately offered my resignation", which had not been accepted.

The hearing was adjourned until Thursday.