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Starring Golden Globe-nominated actor Hugh Grant and based on a true story, "A Very English Scandal" tells the story of Jeremy Thorpe, a member of Parliament who, in 1979, was tried and later acquitted of conspiring to murder his ex-lover, Norman Scott.
A Very English Scandal: With Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Alex Jennings, Patricia Hodge. British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe is accused of conspiracy to murder his gay ex-lover and forced to stand trial in 1979.
Jason Watkins. Emlyn Hooson. Patricia Hodge. Ursula Thorpe. Watchlist. TRAILER. Watchlist. Starring Golden Globe-nominated actor Hugh Grant and based on a true story, "A Very English Scandal"...
- (69)
- Hugh Grant
- Stephen Frears
- May 20, 2018
- Who Was Jeremy Thorpe MP?
- Was Jeremy Thorpe homosexual?
- Who Was Norman Scott and What Was His Relationship with Jeremy Thorpe?
- Why Was Norman Scott A Problem?
- What Was Jeremy Thorpe Alleged to Have done?
- When – and How – Was Homosexuality legalised?
- How Did The Jeremy Thorpe Affair Come to Light?
- What Happened at The Thorpe Trial?
- What Happened to Jeremy Thorpe After The Trial?
- Are Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott Still Alive?
Jeremy Thorpe was the first British politician to stand trial for murder. He was leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 until 1976, when revelations about a homosexual relationship with former model Norman Scott and an alleged murder plot came to light. He was tried and acquitted at the Old Bailey after one of the most notorious judgements in the co...
Thorpe had many relationships and liaisons with men, but this was a hugely risky secret life: all homosexual activity was illegal in the United Kingdom until 1967, and the truth about his sexuality would have instantly ended his political career. He was married twice, first to Caroline and then – when she died in a car crash – to the formidable Mar...
In 1961, Norman Scott had been suffering from severe depression and was fresh out of a psychiatric hospital. He was 21 and penniless, estranged from his mother, unknown to his father, and working as a groom at the stables of Brecht Van de Vater. It was while visiting his pal Vater that Jeremy Thorpe met Scott for the first time. It was a chance enc...
Over the next 15 years, Scott found employment here and there, moving around the country and trying out everything from modelling to monasteries. He had a disastrous and brief marriage, and fathered a son who he was barely allowed to see. He often lived in poverty, and went through periods of severe mental illness, attempting suicide. Frequently he...
"The higher he climbed on the political ladder, the greater was the threat to his ambition from Scott," the prosecution lawyer began at Thorpe's 1979 trial. "His anxiety became an obsession and his thoughts desperate." The prosecution alleged that, early in 1969, Thorpe had invited his colleague Bessell and friend David Holmes to his room at the Ho...
In 1957, the Wolfenden Report had recommended that "homosexual behaviour" between consenting adults in private should no longer be criminalised, but it was some time before Parliament was ready to consider the issue in earnest. One politician who was determined to change the law was a Welsh Labour MP called Leo Abse. Unfortunately, despite his best...
Up until this point, Thorpe had mainly kept rumours about his sexuality and his relationship with Scott under wraps, with the help of political colleagues, a compliant press, friends like Bessell, and the police. But in December 1975 the Private Eye and the Sunday Express caught on to a story from the local press about the mystery of the "dog in th...
The choice of trial judge came as a surprise. The Honourable Sir Joseph Donaldson Cantley, as Preston explains, "was so little known outside legal circles that not a single news agency possessed a photograph of him. Hesitant of manner, fond of laughing at his own jokes and looking like a startled dormouse in his ermine robes, Cantley was not consid...
Thorpe's public reputation had been damaged irreparably. Preston writes: "Although he had been acquitted, Thorpe soon discovered that almost everyone thought he was guilty – and treated him accordingly." He had already lost his seat in the May 1979 General Election before the trial began, and the fact that he turned down the chance to speak in cour...
In the mid 1980s Thorpe was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, which progressively robbed him of his power to communicate. He died in 2014 at the age of 85, outliving his ever-faithful wife Marion by just a few months. And what of Norman Scott, formerly Norman Josiffe? Now 78, he lives in an ancient farmhouse on Dartmoor in Devon alongside a colle...
- Eleanor Bley Griffiths
Amazon's new drama A Very English Scandal is based on the real life Thorpe Affair. Here's everything you need to know about the true event, plus star Hugh Grant's take on it!
Feb 20, 2024 · Set in the aggressively homophobic '60s and '70s, the new BBC drama A Very English Scandal is actually an adaptation of a book of the same name by John Preston; it tells the story of a...
Jun 28, 2018 · By Jason Bailey. June 28, 2018. When the three-part mini-series “A Very English Scandal” hits Amazon Prime on June 29, it will be received by a much different audience than the one that...
