THE SCANDAL THAT HAD EVERYTHING
Sex, blackmail, intrigue, even a dead dog
JEREMY THORPE:
Eton and Oxford-educated Thorpe rose swiftly through the ranks to become leader of the Liberal Party while still in his mid-30s.
His peak was the 1974 general election when the Liberals won six million votes and there was talk of a power-sharing deal.
Rumours of a gay affair with Norman Scott had circulated for a decade despite the married politician insisting they were nothing more than friends. The scandal erupted when Scott’s Great Dane was shot dead on Exmoor in 1975, in a bungled hit allegedly ordered by Thorpe in order to silence his former lover.
He was forced to resign the leadership the following year, later lost his seat as an MP and went on trial at the Old Bailey.
Thorpe, described by the judge as a “man of hitherto unblemished reputation”, was acquitted but his political career was ruined. He did not give evidence in his own defence and never publicly explained how a man armed with a gun came to confront Scott on a remote road.
Blocked by his own party from returning he was offered a senior post with Amnesty International but that was also scuppered by opposition from members and many questions still remained. Thorpe, played by Hugh Grant in the drama, also applied unsuccessfully for the job of race relations adviser to the BBC.
Not long afterwards he began showing the signs of Parkinson’s disease that led to his retirement from public life in the mid-1980s. There was, however, a reconciliation with the Liberals and Thorpe became president of the North Devon Liberal Association. At the 1997 Lib Dem Party conference he received a standing ovation. Thorpe died aged 85 in 2014. RELATIONS: Hugh Grant as MP Jeremy Thorpe and Ben Whishaw as Scott
NORMAN SCOTT:
The former stable lad and aspiring model, who was 20 years old when he first met the politician, claimed they began a homosexual relationship in 1961, a time when gay sex was still illegal. After the pair fell out Scott made several attempts to go public but Thorpe and his allies managed to hush up the trysts.
In October 1975 Scott, who is played by Ben Whishaw, was befriended by a man using the alias Peter Keene. As the pair were driving across Exmoor at night a gun was pulled and Scott’s dog called Rinka was killed.
Scott told police that the hitman then turned the weapon on him, exclaiming: “It’s your turn now.” But the gun jammed before he drove off. The alleged assassin was traced but claimed he was merely trying to frighten Scott, who was blackmailing Daily Express Saturday May 19 2018