John Preston has just published a gripping account of the Jeremy Thorpe case, A Very English Scandal (Penguin). Sometimes the details make one laugh out loud or gasp with amazement at the tale of the shooting of Rinka, the Alsatian dog, and all that followed. But although I was completely carried along by the narrative, I found myself resisting the book’s implied conclusion that Thorpe’s acquittal of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott was a disgrace.
Possibly I am biased, because my father worked for Thorpe over some of the period involved, writing his speeches and giving him political advice (luckily the personal and constituency sides of things never fell to him). But the point that emerges very clearly is that almost all the people involved — Peter Bessell, Scott, David Holmes, Andrew ‘Gino’ Newton, perhaps Thorpe himself — told lots of lies. There is almost no part of the narrative, therefore, which can confidently be believed.
So when George Carman QC, counsel for Thorpe, decided not to call his client in his trial, he was doing the right thing. If he had called him, Thorpe would have had to admit to various homosexual affairs which, though not strictly relevant to the case, would in those days (the late 1970s) have ruined him. Instead, Carman set about destroying the credibility of the witnesses against Thorpe, and triumphantly succeeded. After long debate, the jury decided to acquit Thorpe. They were surely right. Juries are not supposed to guess about who is guilty (if I had to guess about Thorpe, I would guess that he was), but to decide on the sole basis of the evidence heard. The acquittal was a triumph for the jury system.
Preston records that my father drove Thorpe to Downing Street for his leader’s talks with Ted Heath in February 1974 about forming a coalition. If this were true, it would conclusively prove that Thorpe really was an insanely compulsive risk-taker, since my father has never learnt to drive. I checked with my father, and he assures me that he arrived in one of the passenger seats.
This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes. The full article can be found here.
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