Thorpe jury: second day of deliberation

Press, 22 June 1979, Page 5

Thorpe jury: second day of deliberation

NZPA-Reuter London The jury in the trial of the British politician, Jeremy Thorpe, after a night locked away in a hotel yesterday continued deliberating whether he plotted to kill his alleged homosexual lover. The nine men and three women of the jury began considering their verdicts on Wednesday, the twenty-ninth day of the trial. But after six hours had Still not reached a decision.

They returned to the Old Bailey court yesterday but there" was no indication that their verdicts were imminent.

The judge had told them, “Take as long as you like. There is no hurry and we will wait for you.” Thorpe, who is 50, former leader of the Liberal Party, is accused with three other men of conspiring to murder a former male model, Norman Scott. Thorpe alone faces the additional charge of incitement to murder.

Mr Scott, who alleges he had a homosexual relationship with Thorpe in the early 19605. has been one of tile prosecution witnesses. Thorpe denies the allegation. The prosecution case is that the hired “hitman" bungled the attempt, shooting dead only Mr Scott’s dog as he walked it on a lonely English moor in 1975.

All four accused deny the charges. In his summing-up. the judge (Sir Joseph Cantley), made scathing criticism of the leading prosecution witnesses and called Mr Scott a crook, parasite, and spineless neurotic. He also said the evidence against Thorpe was circumstantial.

Throughout the trial Thorpe and his co-defend-ants have been free on bail. But. following the usual practice in British criminal law, the bail was cancelled after the case went to the jury.

This meant that instead of walking out of the Old

’ Bailey courtroom on Wednesday morning, as he has usually done during breaks. Thorpe vent down the forbidding stone steps that lead directly from the dock to the cell> below, on the site of the notorious old Newgate prison. The judge carefully waited until the jurors had left the room before ordering the four defendants to be held in jail, explaining that he did not want the jury to read any significance into tbe decision, and, under Britain's far-reaching contempt law. he also ordered that British newspapers and broadcasting stations not report that. Thorpe was spending that night in custody, because of the chance that one of the jurors, though sequestered, might find out about it. The newspapers, which have been giving extensive coverage to the trial, made a special appeal for permission to report that jThorpe was going to jail, • but the judge denied it.