The Jeremy Thorpe Scandal (2018 TV Movie)

Norman Scott: Self

Quotes 

• [talking about the admission that Meighan made in a radio broadcast following Thorpe's death] 

  Norman Scott : I knew there was something to do with Thorpe. There were five different attempts and I was aware of two of them.

  Tom Mangold : And were you ever invited to go to Florida?

  Norman Scott : Yes indeed. The plan was really to get me there and then out me into a helicopter and drop me in the Everglades.

  Tom Mangold : I'm sorry, I'm laughing. I'm not being disrespectful, but they weren't kidding, were they?

  Norman Scott : No they were not. And another one was to get me drunk, I'd fall off the stool and then they would pick me up, take me me out of the pub and then drop me down a tin mine in Cornwall. It's laughable. It's also *very* very serious.

• [introduction] 

  Tom Mangold : The programme you're about to see has remained secret almost forty years. It was made here at the old BBC Television Centre but not broadcast. The master copy was put under lock and key. Other copies were ordered to be destroyed by the then Director General, but I as the reporter didn't follow those instructions. I kept a copy and hoped there would come a day when viewers would see it. Tonight, finally, we've reached that point. And here's the story. In 1979, Panorama and BBC Television News spent months investigating the background to the sensational trial of former Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe, for a special programme. Thorpe, along with three others, was accused of conspiring to murder his former gay lover Norman Scott, also known as Norman Josiffe.

  Norman Scott : [archive voiceover]  He levelled it at me and then came back, and I suddenly realised that he *was* going to shoot me as well.

  Tom Mangold : We believed that a guilty verdict against Thorpe was a certainty, but when the resounding verdicts of not guilty against all the defendants were returned, the programme was halted on legal grounds.

  Tom Mangold : [archive interview]  Does it occur to you now that you and the Home Secretary of the day were sitting down and conspiring to pervert the course of justice?

  Peter Bessell : [archive interview]  *At the time* it occurred to me, never mind today.

  Tom Mangold : Today there's a strong and widespread view that the Thorpe verdict was a miscarriage of justice, and we're now broadcasting an edited version of the programme. I've waited forty years to tell you the real Jeremy Thorpe story. Tonight's the night - at last.