Norman Scott (model)

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Norman Scott was a male model who accused the then Liberal Party Leader Jeremy Thorpe, his alleged former lover, and three others, of his attempted murder.^[1]^[2]

[edit] Rinkagate

In 1971, Scott claimed to have had an affair with Thorpe between 1961 and 1963 whilst he was working as a stable hand. At this time homosexual activities were illegal in Britain and an inquiry ensued. Thorpe was found to be innocent but Scott stood by his claims. In 1976 during the trial of Andrew Newton (see below), Scott claimed that Thorpe had arranged, along with David Holmes, George Deakin and John Le Mesurier, to have him murdered if he spoke of their affair. Scott also sold letters to the Press which he claimed to be love letters from Thorpe; one of these included the memorable line "Bunnies can and will go to France", which supposedly showed Thorpe using his 'pet-name' for Scott in connection with a trip that the two men were hoping to make together. The alleged plot re-emerged after Andrew Newton, a former airline pilot, claimed in two London evening newspapers that he had been paid £5,000 to kill Scott. It is undisputed that at one point in 1975, while walking a friend's female Great Dane (called "Rinka") on Exemoor, Scott was confronted by Newton, who was armed with a gun. Newton shot and killed the dog, which had been loaned to Scott for protection, then pointed the gun at Scott, but it apparently failed to go off. The name 'Rinkagate' was subsequently given to the scandal.

At Thorpe's trial Scott's freeloading lifestyle was ruthlessly exposed by George Carman QC to undermine his credibility as a witness, a tactic which paid off when the judge described Scott in exceptionally unflattering terms in his summing up. All the defendants were acquitted.

It has been alleged by the journalist Barrie Penrose that Jack Straw leaked information from Scott's social security file to the press. Straw was political advisor to Barbara Castle at the Department of Social Security at the time and had been asked to look into Scott's file by Castle and Harold Wilson to see if it contained any indications that Scott was part of a security conspiracy against Thorpe. Straw claimed that the file was already missing when he went to examine it and has refused to comment on Penrose's allegation. He has denied allegations by Joe Haines that Wilson ordered him to examine the file for political reasons, to see if information in it could be used against Thorpe.

In a BBC2 documentary ^[3] on 16 March 2006, Penrose reveals that he pursued or stumbled on the murder allegations in the course of following leads from Harold Wilson, who wanted to prompt an investigation into the role of security services in destabilizing his government. The documentary suggests that Wilson's original perception and intention was to help rather than undermine Thorpe, believing that he was also an intended victim of a right-wing plot by a rogue element in MI5.