Police to investigate 'suppressed evidence' from Jeremy Thorpe trial
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Version 0 of 1. Police are launching an inquiry into claims that potentially crucial evidence was suppressed during the 1970s investigation into the then Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe. Thorpe, who died last year aged 85, was cleared in 1979 at the Old Bailey of conspiracy to murder model Norman Scott. The politician had been accused of hiring a hitman to murder Scott, who alleged that Thorpe wanted him silenced to cover up a sexual affair. Scott’s great dane Rinka was shot at his home on Dartmoor in Devon, but the model escaped unharmed. After Thorpe’s death, a Radio 4 documentary broadcast the claims of Dennis Meighan, an antique firearms dealer who said he was originally asked to kill Scott but refused to be involved. Meighan said he spoke to police about the approach but his original statement vanished to be replaced by one that removed incriminating references to Thorpe and the Liberal party. On Wednesday, Avon and Somerset police, which carried out the original inquiry, confirmed it had asked another force to look at the case and is currently drawing up terms of reference. It may reveal later which force is to carry out the fresh investigation. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has been informed of the move. Thorpe won the North Devon seat for the Liberal party in 1959 and was renowned for his energetic campaigning and flamboyant style. He served as the party’s treasurer before becoming leader in 1967. His political career was ended by the scandal. Thorpe, who married twice, was cleared along with three fellow defendants in 1979 in what was billed at the time as the “trial of the century”. In the Radio 4 documentary, made by investigative reporter Tom Mangold, Meighan alleged that his original statement incriminated himself and Thorpe. He claimed he later received an anonymous phone call asking him to go to his nearest police station in west London. In the documentary, Meighan said: “I just went in there on my own, read the statement, which did me no end of favours but it did Jeremy Thorpe no end of favours too because it left him completely out of it. “So I thought, I’ve got to sign this. So I signed it, gave it back to them, said nothing to them and that was the end of it. I just virtually left everything out that was incriminating. At the same time everything I said about Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal party, etc, was left out as well.” Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Mangold said that if Meighan was telling the truth – and he had no reason to think he was not – there must have been a “conspiracy at the very highest level”. |