Scott tells of Thorpe affair

Press, 21 May 1979, Page 9

Scott tells of Thorpe affair

NZPA-Reuter London A male model, Norman Scott, has told a London jury about a visit to the House of Commons which led to his being seduced by the man aow accused of plotting to kill him, the former Liberal Party leader, Jeremy Thorpe. It happened in 1961, he said at the trial of Mr Thorpe, who has pleaded not guilty to incitement and conspiracy to murder, charges which carry a possible 10year sentence.

Mr Scott, then a stable-lad of 20, said he had a nervous breakdown and cut his wrist. He took Thorpe up oh an earlier offer to help him, if he was ever in trouble, so he went, with his dog called Mrs Tish, to Parliament.

The politician drove him to the country home of his elderly, widowed mother, Ursula Thorpe, and that night vigorously made love to him.

“I just bit the pillow,” TVj r Scott said. “I tried not to scream because I was frightened of upsetting Mrs Thorpe.” Thorpe made love to him a second time that night, he said, and afterwards “I just lay there with my dog and cried.” "Mr Scott told the jury earlier that the politician helped set him up in a flat and enabled him to buy silk pyjamas at a fashionable shop.

There were teas at the House of Commons and dinners at the exclusive Reform Club. But he said that he was

upset about the continued sexual activity. They quarrelled and once, when Thorpe tried to kiss him as they drove in a car, he had said, “I can’t stand it.” He said he threatened “that I would show him up in public.” But Thorpe laughed and said one of his friends was the Director of Public Prosecutions, so that would not work. The Crown case in the trial is that Thorpe later feared Mr Scott would blurt out his story and ruin his political career, so he wanted him killed. Three other men are in the dock with him at the Old Bailey, Britain’s most famous criminal court. David Holmes, best man at Thorpe’s 1968 wedding, is

alleged to have managed a 1975 plot, to kill Mr Scott.

A fruit-machine dealer, George Deakin, is accused of hiring a gunman, said to have bungled the murder. Instead of shooting Mr Scott, the prosectuion says, he only shot another of his dogs, a Great Dane bitch called Rinka.

A burly carpet trader, John le Mesurier, is alleged to have paid the gunman £5OOO (nearly $10,000) half an original contract fee after he came out of prison. These three men plead not guilty to the conspiracy-to-murder charge. Thorpe, who has always strenuously denied having had any sexual relationship with Mr Scott, sat impassively through the allegations of seduction.