‘Tragedy of Thorpe’

Press, 13 June 1979, Page 8

‘Tragedy of Thorpe’

NZPA-Reuter London Jeremy Thorpe was slowly destroyed by his homosexual tendencies in what has been described at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, as a tragedy of Greek or Shakespearian proportions. The tragedy was that the former British Libera! Party leader was surrounded by the 1 Norman Scott affair, said the Crown counsel, Mr Peter Taylor, Q.C. Two facts had been at the root of the matter, he said. Thorpe was a bachelor with homosexual tendencies, and had been a young member of Parliament determined to get to the top. “It is the working-out over the years, and the conflict of these two traits o'f character that are the key — and the only key— to what followed,” said Mr Taylor. In the end the Scott affair had blighted Thorpe’s career. Mr Taylor was making his closing speech on the twenty-second day of the murder-conspiracy trial. He spoke for five hours. He told the jury: “The tragedy of this case on any view is that Mr Thorpe has been surrounded, and in the end his career blighted, by the Scott affair.

“His story is a tragedy of truly Greek or Shakespearian proportions — the slow but inevitable destruction of a man by the stamp of one defect.”

The Crown alleges a plot l was hatched to kill Mr Scott because his claims of a homosexual relationship with Thorpe threatened the former Liberal leader’s career and party. Thorpe; his close friend, David Holmes; and two busi-

nessmen, John le Mesurier and George Deaktn, have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to murder the formei* male model. Thorpe has also pleaded not guilty to trying to persuade Holmes to kill Mr Scott.

Mr Taylor said it was now clear "beyond dispute” that each of them had played a part in the hiring of an alleged hit-man, Andrew Newton.

He said the motive for the alleged conspiracy began with the homosexual relationship "and the failure of any lesser measures than killing to deal with the threat that the relationship posed.” Thorpe had denied in a statement that he had had a homosexual relationship with Scott. The night Thorpe allegedly made love to Mr Scott, he had given Mr Scott a book about a homosexual relationship, and Mr Taylor asked: “Why take in a book about a homosexual relationship unless you have got some interest in him in that respect?” Mr Taylor suggested that Thorpe had “tried to fix the record” over his statements to the press and the police. Thorpe claimed that he had invited a former Com- ■ missioner of Police and the iHome Secretary to in(vestigate.

Only when the jury had heard in evidence this was (not true, had the defence (conceded.

Referring to an instance of Thorpe’s “scheming and deviously planning to adjust the record” Mr Taylor said: “1 am sorry to say this, but ithe deviousness of Mr 1 Thorpe rings through this lease again and again."