OWNED FROM THE GRAVE Norman Scott claims he was ‘groomed’ and ‘raped’ by former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe THE real-life victim of TVs A Very English Scandal reveals how even now his life is controlled by former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe who was accused of hiring a hitman to kill him EXCLUSIVE
By Clare O'Reilly 25th May 2018, 10:30 pm Updated: 26th May 2018, 2:04 am NORMAN SCOTT was at the heart of a scandal that rocked Westminster when he accused Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe – his gay lover – of trying to kill him.
More than 40 years later he still fears for his life.
More than 40 years after being confronted by a 'hitman' on a remote part of Exmoor, Norman Scott still fears for his life In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Scott, now 78, said: “If the papers ever say, ‘Norman Scott has killed himself’, it’ll be a lie. I wouldn’t and I won’t.”
Describing his toxic relationship with Thorpe, in which he reveals today he was raped, Scott added: “He stripped me of my confidence and took away my ability to be independent.”
As a person who took on the Establishment and lost, he is perhaps justified in his paranoia.
Scott was thrust into the public eye after a plot to murder him went wrong in October 1975, later landing Thorpe in the dock.
Norman Scott pictured in 1980 after Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe was destroyed by the scandal
Thorpe, the charismatic politician with ambitions to become Prime Minster, was cleared of conspiracy to murder at his 1979 trial.
Scott, the supposed victim, was slammed by the judge as “a neurotic, spineless creature, addicted to hysteria and self-advertisement”.
Now the whole affair has been resurrected for hit BBC drama A Very English Scandal, starring Hugh Grant as Thorpe and Ben Whishaw as Scott, which premiered on Sunday.
It follows the doomed journey from their first meeting in 1960 to the murder attempt on a rainy October evening on Exmoor in 1975 — an event which would ultimately end Thorpe’s political career.
Describing his toxic relationship with Jeremy Thorpe, Norman Scott claims he was 'raped' and 'groomed' by the charismatic Liberal MP
Scott insists it cost him even more, his virginity, his mental health and almost his life.
He said: “Jeremy Thorpe took advantage of me in every way a human being could.”
When he first met Thorpe, who died of Parkinson’s disease in 2014, Scott was a horse trainer for Norman Vater, one of the MP’s former lovers.
Thorpe was a dazzlingly talented MP with a flair for publicity and fashion.
The slim and handsome 19-year-old Scott quickly caught his eye and the older man gave him his Houses of Parliament business card, insisting he get in touch if he needed anything.
Ben Whishaw as Norman Scott in A Very English Scandal Scott recalled: “I was bowled over by his generosity. I didn’t know then he was grooming me.”
Within weeks, Scott left Vater’s Oxfordshire yard on bad terms, suffered a nervous breakdown and attempted to kill himself.
During a stay at a psychological unit, he attempted another overdose.
When doctors asked him if there was anyone he could trust to help him, Scott thought of Thorpe, whose card had been “like a treasure”.
He said: “I was 19, my confidence had been undermined in a way I’d never thought possible. I was unravelling. I contacted Thorpe and he swooped in.”
Talking about the alleged 'rape', Norman says: 'I was a virgin. I’d had girlfriends, I didn’t know what gay sex was' Thorpe drove Scott to a house in Surrey, where he had sex with him, six years before homosexuality was partially decriminalised in 1967.
For the first time, Scott now says the encounter was rape.
He said: “Jeremy Thorpe raped me and put his hand over my mouth.
“I was a virgin. I’d had girlfriends, I didn’t know what gay sex was.”
It began a dark relationship in which Scott claims Thorpe made him dependent on him, paying his rent, giving him money and turning up at all hours of the day for sex.
Until his death Thorpe, who went on to marry twice, always maintained this had merely been an affectionate friendship with no sex involved.
Hugh Grant plays Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal - the TV drama Norman describes as 'incredibly moving' at times but not 'entirely accurate'
But Scott says he was emotionally and verbally abused by Thorpe, who would try to convince him to take part in group orgies with Swedish sailors and other men he would pick up from the streets of London.
For Scott there seemed to be no escape, not least because he did not have his National Insurance card, which he needed to get a job.
Scott said: “Jeremy had procured my National Insurance card from Norman Vater when I left his yard.
“More than any of the degradation he subjected me to, it was his adamant refusal to give it back that undid me. I still don’t have it.
“He took away my ability to be independent, to earn for myself and pull myself from a toxic relationship. He owned every part of me.”
Jeremy Thorpe arrives at his Old Bailey trial in 1979
The relationship ended in 1964.
But even then Thorpe would not relinquish his hold over his former lover by giving him back his card, as seen in the TV plot. Instead, Thorpe’s right-hand man Peter Bessell, the Liberal MP for Bodmin, put Scott on a £5 weekly retainer at the behest of Thorpe.
Scott said: “It paid my rent but I was still owned by him. He kept me in a position where I couldn’t help myself or be free of him. He was always in the shadows.”
Scott attempted to expose Thorpe by going to the police and Press. His story fell on deaf ears.
In 1967, Thorpe became leader of the Liberals at 37.
Scott married Sue in 1969, having had a son the previous year.
He continued to receive mysterious payments.
The marriage fell apart two years later and Sue initially cited Thorpe on the divorce papers but later retracted the mention of him.
Scott claims he reported Thorpe to the Liberal Party in an attempt to get them to investigate the NI card issue.
He says their response was to accuse him of being a blackmailer and a “nasty little queer”.
He started drinking heavily and became homeless, sleeping in toilets.
By 1974 Thorpe was on the brink of power.
He had led the Liberals to electoral success, winning 14 seats and forcing a hung Parliament. The prosecution in Thorpe’s trial alleged that the following year he tried to persuade Bessell and his friend David Holmes, assistant treasurer of the Liberal Party, to have Scott killed.
They rejected the idea but years later it is claimed Holmes started looking for a hitman. This was pilot Andrew Newton.
Scott first saw Newton in a pub in Barnstaple, Devon.
Newton told him someone was coming to kill him, and that he could provide protection.
Scott said: “I’d seen Thorpe operating in the shadows for over a decade. I knew anything was possible.” BULLETS, SEX AND POLITICS
1960: Thorpe first meets Scott at stables in Oxfordshire. 1961: Scott begins sleeping with the MP after seeking him out in the House of Commons. 1962: Thorpe persuades police to drop a theft charge against Scott. In December, police informed that Scott told a friend he wanted to kill his lover. 1965: Scott writes to Thorpe’s mother, saying the MP has seduced him. 1967: Shortly after becoming leader of the Liberal Party, Thorpe’s colleague Peter Bessell, pictured above right, starts giving Scott hush money. In the same year, homosexuality is partially decriminalised. 1968: Thorpe is said to tell Bessell “we’ve got to get rid of” Scott. 1969: Thorpe suggests getting his friend, David Holmes, to kill ex-lover Scott. 1974: Under Thorpe’s leadership, the Liberals enjoy their biggest share of a general election poll since 1929. 1975: Holmes allegedly hires pilot Andrew Newton, picutred on the left, to murder Scott but the would-be assassin bungles the shooting. 1976: In March, Newton is found guilty of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger Scott’s life but does not incriminate Thorpe. Two months later, Thorpe resigns as party leader when stories about the scandal begin appearing. 1979: Thorpe found not guilty of conspiring to murder Scott.
What Scott did not know was that Newton was the assassin.
Newton picked him up the following night but did not anticipate that Scott would have his Great Dane, Rinka, with him. Newton was terrified of dogs.
Panicking, Newton shot the dog, then turned the gun on Scott. The pistol jammed and Newton fled.
Visibly distressed at the memory of losing his beloved pet, Scott said: “Rinka gave her life for me.”
Newton was found guilty of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life and got two years.
He refused to reveal whose orders he was following. But later Scott, in a magistrates’ court on an unrelated social security fraud charge, used the chance to air details of his “romance” with Thorpe, delighting the papers.
Jeremy Thorpe, pictured leaving the Old Bailey with his wife Marion, after been cleared of plotting to have Norman Scott killed
Scott said: “It was never about taking anyone down or ruining anyone. I wanted back what was rightfully mine — my independence and my right to earn a living.”
Thorpe stepped down as party leader in 1976, maintaining Scott was lying.
When Newton was released from prison in 1977, he claimed he had been paid to kill Scott. Thorpe, Holmes, and two other men allegedly involved in hiring Newton were arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder.
After a sensational trial, all four were acquitted, with the judge noting Thorpe was a man of “hitherto unblemished reputation” and “a national figure with a very distinguished public record”.
Scott, meanwhile, was a branded a “crook, liar and parasite”.
Alex Jennings plays Thorpe’s right-hand man Peter Bessell in the TV drama
But Thorpe’s reputation never recovered and he quit politics. Scott says he felt nothing on hearing of Thorpe’s death but will not rest until the truth is out. He said: “I’ll exhale when Thorpe is officially linked to my attempted murder. All I ever did was tell the truth.” He has lived quietly in Devon since the Seventies and said of the BBC show: “‘There’s parts which are incredibly moving and took my breath away. But it’s not entirely accurate.”
Having spent his working life without his NI card, unable to pay contributions towards his pension, Scott is only entitled to £43 a week.
Jeremy Thorpe died of Parkinson’s disease in 2014
He said: “Thorpe may have died but even now, from beyond the grave, he’s still trying to own a part of my life.”
He added: “I was such a broken young man in the Sixties and Seventies. I was battling mental health disorders, suicidal thoughts and I gave up when he was let off.
“After Exmoor, I wasn’t sure I’d survive, much less thrive, but I have. Jeremy Thorpe took my twenties and thirties away from me and tried to take my life.
“I won’t let him take any more.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6382922/norman-scott-claims-groomed-raped-jeremy-thorpe/