Disgraced Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe dies age 85

Leader of the Liberals from 1967 to 1976, Jeremy Thorpe had steered his party to impressive parliamentary success.

In the February 1974 election the Liberals won 19.3 per cent of the vote. In negotiations to form a government, Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath proposed a coalition with the Liberals and offered Jeremy Thorpe the role of Home Secretary, but he declined fearing such a deal would split his party.

Just five years later, in 1979, Thorpe was on trial at the Old Bailey accused of conspiracy to murder.

Stories had begun circulating about Thorpe’s relationship with a former male model, Norman Scott. Scott accused the twice-married MP of having a gay affair with him over several years. Crucially, he claimed that the relationship had started in 1961 – at a time when homosexuality was illegal.

Thorpe always denied the story, but when a second letter between him and Scott appeared in the papers, resigned as party leader. Years of remorseless media attention had begun.

In 1975 Norman Scott’s dog had been shot in an incident on Exmoor. The gunman later claimed “a leading Liberal supporter” had actually paid him £5,000 to kill Scott. A police inquiry led to the arrest of Thorpe and three other men for conspiring to murder Norman Scott.

Thorpe got the start of the Old Bailey trial delayed to allow him to fight for his North Devon seat in the May 1979 election. But the scandal was too great, and after 20 years as an MP, he was heavily defeated by the Conservative candidate.

Jeremy Thorpe after his acquittal

The 31-day trial ended with Thorpe’s acquittal on both charges, but his political career was over. Opposition from the membership of Amnesty International prevented him being appointed as director general of the organisation’s British section.

He was to battle with Parkinson’s Disease for more than three decades until his death.

His son Rupert, by his first wife Caroline Allpass, described him as “a devoted husband to my two mothers, Caroline, who died tragically in 1970, and Marion who passed away in March and had raised me and stood by him through everything.”

Lord Steel of Aikwood, who succeeded him as Liberal Party leader, said “He had a genuine sympathy for the underprivileged – whether in his beloved North Devon where his first campaign was for ‘mains, drains and a little bit of light’ or in Africa, where he was a resolute fighter against apartheid.”

Speaking in 2009 about the scandal that brought him down, he said “if it happened now, I think the public would be kinder.”