Thorpe’s ‘ex-lover’ to tell court of homosexual affair

Press, 30 November 1978, Page 9

Thorpe’s ‘ex-lover’ to tell court of homosexual affair

International

NZPA-Reuter Minehead Ihe embattled former leader of the British Liberal Party, Jeremy Thorpe, today comes face to face in court with a man who says they once had a homosexual affair and whose murder the politician is alleged to have plotted.

Mr Thorpe, who is 49, is in 1 the Magistrate’s Court at j Minehead formally accused of conspiring to kill the man, < Norman Scott, aged 38, who was once a male model. < The politician, who has 1 said they have not met for I some 15 years, has firmly ] denied Mr Scott’s claim and I the charges against him. The prosecutor plans to put Mr Scott in the witness box this morning and has ; told the Magistrates that i there is evidence that the ! two men had an affair in the early 19605. The prosecutor alleged i that Thorpe and three other ' men, who are accused with him of conspiracy to murder. hired an airline pilot. Andrew Newton, for £lO.OOO to silence Mr Scott by killing him. The magistrates this week) heard Mr Newton say he I lost his nerve and only shot; dead, Mr Scott’s Great Dane! dog on a foggy October night in 1975 on a desolate road near Minehead. Mr Scott now lives in a lonely cottage on the moors south-west of Minehead,

where he looks after horses. His life is that of a semirecluse. He came to testify yesterday but was not called.

Accused with Mr Thorpe of conspiracy to murder are David Holmes, former deputy treasurer of the Liberal Party, John le Mesurier, a businessman, and George Deakin, a nightclub owner. All four men have denied the accusations. Thorpe also denies an additional charge against him that he incited Mr Holmes to murder.

Newton, the airline pilot has said in court that he was the hired killer in the murder plot, has admitted that media interest in the case had made it his “little pot of gold.” Newton also said that two I attempts had been made to I kill him. i Mr Newton said that he! ihad been paid more than! ' £lO,OOO by newspapers and (television companies. He said a man he met in prison acted as his agent and tried to sell his story to European newspapers. A literary agent had discussed a book and a figure of £50,000 had been mooted.

Mr Newton said he had asked the London “Evening News” for £lOO,OOO and that the West German magazine, “Der Spiegel,” had photographed the first page of his statement as a witness.

“This case is your little pot of gold isn’t it?” asked Gareth Williams, counsel for Deakin, one of the four accused. “It is the only source of income I have,” said Mr Newton, who has been without a job since the middle of last year. But he denied having told fantasies for reward.

Then he claimed that two attempts had been made to kill him. He said he was knocked down by an articulated truck which tried to run him over three times at Farmingdale Airfield in New York. Mr Newton said that soon afterwards a car tried to knock him down in London. These alleged attempts were made before his 1976 trial over firearm offences and shooting the dog, “so that sensitive matters could not be brought to the attention of the public.”