Hired Killers, the Dog Murder, Public Outcry and the Final Verdict

Back in his constituency office, Thorpe was convinced Norman intended to destroy his political career by spreading rumours locally. “This man cannot be allowed to go on living,” he decided. “Holmes, contact Bessell. Our final solution is active again.”

The following day, David Holmes arrived. Thorpe gave him a direct order: Norman had turned‑up in his constituency; he must be eliminated. Thorpe allocated £10 000 for the hit.

Holmes telephoned Peter Bessell, who was now living in penury in a small California beach house. Bessell knew events were spiralling toward murder and refused to participate. Holmes would need to organise the killing on his own.

Holmes had no connections to real‑world professional criminals. He cast around through acquaintances and found a middle‑man known by the nickname “Carpet John”, whose real name was John Le Mesurier, a carpet‑salesman (not to be confused with the well‑known actor of the same name). Carpet John liked to boast he had contacts across every walk of life.

Holmes passed the £10 000 contract to Carpet John. A chain of subcontracting began, each man taking a cut of the fee:

1. Holmes → Carpet John (John Le Mesurier): £10 000
2. Carpet John → antiques‑dealer Dennis: £8 000
3. Dennis → one‑armed arcade‑machine salesman George Deakin: £6 000
4. Deakin → ex‑pilot Andrew Newton: £5 000

Newton was the final link; there was no money left to pass the job onward. None of these men were hardened gangsters. Most were ordinary businessmen. Among them, Newton, a former pilot, was arguably the most “competent”.

Newton began his operation in 1975. He staged small harassing incidents designed to convince Norman he was being hunted. Once Norman lived in constant fear, Newton approached him with an elaborate lie: hit‑men had been hired from Canada to kill him. Newton claimed he had been sent by a mysterious well‑wisher to protect Norman’s life.

The story was full of holes, yet terrified Norman believed it. He assumed Thorpe was the one paying for assassins, and that Newton’s secret employer must be one of Thorpe’s political enemies. For self‑protection, Norman took his large Great‑Dane dog Rinka everywhere he went.

All preparations complete, on 24 October 1975, Newton told Norman his anonymous patron wished to meet him after dark. Norman climbed into Newton’s car without suspicion and rode out to the isolated marshland high on Exmoor — the scene of the opening attack.

One critical variable had not featured in Newton’s plans: Norman had brought Rinka along. Newton was afraid of dogs. When he pulled his gun, instinct made him shoot the animal first. Rinka died instantly. He then aimed at Norman — and the weapon jammed. While Newton fumbled trying to clear the malfunctioning firearm, it went off accidentally. The bullet flew past Newton’s face into the night sky.

Shaken and completely unnerved, Newton abandoned the murder attempt. He scrambled back into his car and fled the scene.

Norman Scott ran for his life down toward civilisation. Covered in Rinka’s blood, he burst into a police station and reported what had happened. He told officers Jeremy Thorpe had arranged the hit — and that the gunman had murdered his dog.

During police interviews, Norman repeated his long, tangled life‑story. His rambling account baffled investigating officers. They struggled to comprehend why a senior Member of Parliament would mount an elaborate murder plot that ended up killing only a pet dog.

Fortunately, Norman had memorised Newton’s vehicle‑registration plate. Police arrested Andrew Newton quickly. Under questioning, Newton refused to implicate anyone who had hired him. Instead he invented a defence: Norman possessed compromising photographs of him and had been blackmailing him; Newton had only intended to frighten him.

Killing a dog carried relatively minor penalties under British law at that time. Set beside Norman’s confused testimony, Newton’s story sounded plausible to detectives. He was released on bail.

Norman was furious. He suspected collusion between police and the would‑be killer. If official channels failed him, he would take his fight into open court.

Mainstream British newspapers initially kept silent. Thorpe had burned nearly all documentary evidence. Without solid proof, editors feared costly libel actions if they printed accusations against a prominent MP.

On 31 October 1975, a small‑circulation foreign‑owned tabloid ran a short piece about the bizarre Exmoor incident. The item came to the attention of Auberon Waugh, editor of the satirical investigative magazine Private Eye. Waugh was a long‑standing critic of Jeremy Thorpe. He immediately interviewed Norman Scott.

In December 1975, Private Eye published a provocative column pointing directly at Thorpe: “One hopes that this affair, which began with the death of a dog, will not force Mr Thorpe to retire from public life.”

The story exploded across Britain’s national press. Waugh also devised a clever tactical suggestion for Norman Scott.

On 29 January 1976, Norman was brought before the courts charged with fraudulently claiming £58 in social‑security benefit. Under British procedural rules, defendants were permitted to speak freely in court, and every word would be officially transcribed.

Standing in the dock, facing a full gallery of journalists, Norman declared: “I wish to tell the full story. Because of my relationship with Jeremy Thorpe, I have suffered persecution for fifteen years.”

Within minutes, Fleet Street was buzzing. Thorpe became front‑page news nationwide. He issued a public statement insisting he had not seen Norman for twelve years and that all allegations were fabrications.

News travelled to America. Peter Bessell learned the conspiracy was unravelling. David Holmes remained fiercely loyal to Thorpe and said he would take all blame upon himself if exposed. Bessell saw the flaw in that idea: what plausible motive could Holmes offer? It would look ridiculous to claim he held a grudge against Norman’s dog.

After long reflection, Bessell conceived a self‑sacrificial cover‑story. At trial, they would say Bessell had been Norman’s lover. Supposedly Norman had blackmailed Bessell, and Bessell had asked Holmes to sort the problem out. Thorpe would be cast as an innocent by‑stander caught‑up in somebody‑else’s scandal.

Thorpe thanked Bessell profusely over the telephone. Bessell was bitter; he expected he could never safely return home to Britain. He urged Thorpe to carry the Liberal Party forward.

With this narrative ready, and with quiet behind‑the‑scenes goodwill from prime‑minister Harold Wilson, Thorpe weathered the immediate political storm. The Times printed an article under Thorpe’s by‑line titled Scott is Lying. Thorpe presented himself as a well‑meaning man who had tried to help a troubled young person, only to be falsely accused. Every stain was dumped on Peter Bessell, who was painted as a dishonest, financially‑crooked fantasist who had misused party funds.

When Bessell read the article in exile, he was devastated. He had volunteered to ruin his own reputation to save Thorpe — and now Thorpe was publicly smearing him for political advantage. He begged Thorpe for a simple apology over the telephone. That apology never arrived.

Betrayal turned Bessell’s loyalty. Meanwhile, Norman published a point‑by‑point rebuttal to Thorpe’s newspaper article. This time, guided by outside advice, his statement was lucid and coherent. Crucially, he drew public attention to the set of letters copied and sealed away by police back in 1962.

Mounting public pressure forced authorities to release the archived correspondence. Thorpe had clung to hope that letters alone would not convict him. Then newspapers printed the famous line: “Bunnies can (and will) go to France.”

When Thorpe read those words in print, he sank down in his chair. Publicly, the pretence was shattered. On 10 May 1976, Jeremy Thorpe resigned as Leader of the Liberal Party. Even so, he continued denying everything: letters proved correspondence, not homosexual acts; they certainly did not prove conspiracy to murder.

The damage was irreversible. Andrew Newton confessed the full chain of the hiring‑out of the murder attempt. In 1977, senior detectives from Scotland Yard flew to California to persuade Peter Bessell to return to Britain and give evidence in court. By now writing children’s fiction in exile, Bessell wrestled with his conscience and finally agreed to testify.

The complete story was now on the official record. On 4 August 1978, Jeremy Thorpe was arrested at his home and charged with conspiracy to murder. He became the first sitting British Member of Parliament ever to face a murder conspiracy prosecution. The trial at the Old Bailey captured the whole nation’s attention.

Arrest and charge were not equivalent to conviction. Thorpe retained one of Britain’s most formidable barristers, George Carman QC. Even with most facts established on paper, Carman’s sharp cross‑examination hammered away at Norman Scott, seeking to discredit his character and reliability as a witness.

Under relentless hostile questioning, Norman delivered a memorable courtroom speech:

“This ridiculous story I have told countless times. I do not wish to repeat it again. Counsel knows the truth, yet keeps pressing me. Everyone in this room already knows what really happened. This trial is only arguing over whether Jeremy Thorpe goes to prison. It does not matter. I have told the truth.”

A hush fell over the court‑room. Everyone understood the unspoken sub‑text: courts could deliver a formal verdict of not guilty. They could not erase what the public believed to be true.

On 22 June 1979, the jury returned verdicts of not guilty on all charges. Legally, Thorpe had won. In real‑life terms, he had lost absolutely. His political career was finished. The huge scandal gravely wounded the Liberal Party. In the 1979 general election, Liberal support collapsed. The party lost its power to act as king‑maker between Conservatives and Labour.

The Thorpe Affair shifted British public thinking about the privacy of politicians and the proper boundaries of investigative journalism.

📚 The Thorpe Affair: Britain’s Most Scandalous Political Soap‑Opera

1. 1. The Rainy‑Night Moor Shooting and an Ambitious Aristocrat’s Rise
2. 2. The National‑Insurance Card Trap — the Aristocrat and the Vulnerable Stable‑Hand
3. 3. The Impossible Dead‑End — Endless Harassment and the Birth of a Murder Plot
4. 4. Hired Killers, the Dog Murder, Public Outcry and the Final Verdict (Current)

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Jeremy Thorpe died in 2014, aged eighty‑five. Four years later, the BBC dramatised the saga for television in A Very English Scandal, bringing the strange, tragic episode to new generations.

As for Norman Scott: after the national scandal, he built a stable family life and ran a small farm surrounded by animals. One bitter irony remained. Even when the BBC drama aired decades later, Norman Scott still had never recovered his original national‑insurance card.