JEREMY THORPE ‘MURDER PLOT’
1961: Norman Scott, or Norman Josiffe as he then was, turns up at the Commons asking to speak to rising Liberal Party star Jeremy Thorpe about his national insurance card. The pair had previously met briefly at an Oxon riding stables. They struck up a relationship. 1962: Scott goes to police claiming he is having a gay affair with Thorpe. Homosexuality is still illegal. No charges. Scott stays intermittently at Thorpe’s Westminster flat. 1965: Scott is living in Ireland and begins to talk about the affair. Thorpe sends a pal to Dublin to persuade Scott to keep quiet. 1967: Thorpe becomes Liberal leader. 1968: Thorpe marries Caroline Allpass. Scott returns to London and, it is claimed, talks again about the affair. Thorpe begins to talk to friends about having Scott killed. 1970: Thorpe’s wife dies in car crash. 1971: Scott moves to Wales and continues to talk about the affair. One his pals contacts Emlyn Hooson, then the Liberal MP for Montgomery. Case against Thorpe begins to build but he is cleared by party inquiry. 1975: Dennis Meighan goes to police claiming he was asked to kill Scott and refused. A cover-up allegedly takes place. Andrew Newton hired to carry out the hit but only manages to shoot Scott’s dog Rinka. Scott escapes. Newton is jailed for two years for firearms offences. 1979: Thorpe and accomplices appear at Old Bailey charged with conspiracy to murder. All cleared. 2014: Thorpe dies. 2018: BBC’s A Very English Scandal revives interest in the scandal. BY BEN GLAZE ON a plush sofa at his home, Norman Scott meets Dennis Meighan for the first time – a man who was hired to assassinate him in 1975.
Dennis agreed a £13,500 fee – £140,000 in today’s money – to murder Norman to silence him after his affair with Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe in the 1960s, when homosexuality was illegal.
Now, 43 years after it seemed they would come face-to-face in very different circumstances, Norman asked Dennis during the astonishing showdown: “So, were you really going to murder me all those years ago?”
Dennis, 71, replied: “That’s what they wanted – to kill you, to shut you up.
“My brief was to shoot you. Would I have done it? I don’t know, really.
“I was trying to work out how to get money off them without having to shoot you.” He added: “It was never personal.”
Norman, 78, quipped: “That makes me feel so much better.” Thorpe’s career would have been destroyed if the gay relationship became public knowledge.
He was said to be desperate to keep former male model Norman quiet.
But Dennis, who was approached by an associate of Thorpe to carry out the killing, pulled out of the contract and spilled the beans to police – only for his revelations to be allegedly covered up.
Then he went on to supply a gun to the man who eventually took on what apparently turned out to be a botched hit.
Andrew Newton shot dead Norman’s dog. But the Mauser firearm seemingly jammed when he took aim at his human quarry – allowing Norman to escape.
Norman said the gun failed while it was being forced against his head.
Recalling the horrific moment on Exmoor, Norman said: “The last memory of him is of him shaking the gun in the car headlights, saying, ‘F*** it, f*** it’.”
Dennis replied: “Shaking it? That wouldn’t have done much good.
“He should have reloaded it. Whether