Jeremy Thorpe and his downfall: The 1970s gay sex sndal that volved attempted murr, a ad dog and the Liberal Party lear | The Inpennt | The Inpennt

Contents:

• THE TE STORY OF ‘A VERY ENGLISH SNDAL’ AND THE TRIALS OF A CLOSETED GAY POLICIAN
• DID JEREMY THORPE HAVE A GAY LOVER THROWN TO HIS ATH OM A YACHT?
• JEREMY THORPE AND HIS DOWNFALL: THE 1970S GAY SEX SNDAL THAT VOLVED ATTEMPTED MURR, A AD DOG AND THE LIBERAL PARTY LEAR
• JEREMY THORPE’S GAY EX-LOVER NORMAN STT FACE-TO-FACE WH WOULD-BE ASSASS FOR FIRST TIME
• FURY OF JEREMY THORPE'S GAY LOVER AS TV DRAMA TURNS HIS ORAL TO 'A EDY'

THE TE STORY OF ‘A VERY ENGLISH SNDAL’ AND THE TRIALS OF A CLOSETED GAY POLICIAN

To be gay Bra durg that era meant puttg onelf nstant danger of arrt. “It was a very opprsive climate right up to and cludg the Margaret Thatcher years, ” says polil scientist David Raysi, the thor of On the Frge: Gays and Lbians Polics. “In the 1970s and 80s, the overwhelmg majory Bra thought homosexual activy was morally wrong.

Like many untri, Bra had a long history of anti-gay discrimatn. Even then, was followed by dranian measur to prevent gay relatnships, cludg the Crimal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which ma “gross cency” between men—a purposely vague term—a crimal act. The panic over homosexualy ntued after World War II, wr historian Michael Bloch Closet Queens: Some 20th Century Brish Policians: “A fiercely homophobic Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, aid by an equally puranil Director of Public Prosecutns, Sir Theobold Matthew, was termed to ‘rid England of this plague.

DID JEREMY THORPE HAVE A GAY LOVER THROWN TO HIS ATH OM A YACHT?

That report remend public statut should avoid legislatg moraly, and that the ernment should remove nsensual homosexual liaisons om crimal law. The 1967 Sexual Offens Act crimalized homosexual acts between nsentg adults private, though didn’t remove the stigma attendant on such acts.

In some ways, gay dividuals were jt as vulnerable as before. “The police were still entirely willg to heavily police those venu where was thought that homosexual activy occurred. That’s not to say all policians fought actively agast gay rights.

But the two domant parti of the era, the Labour and Conservative parti, were nowhere near as terted aligng themselv wh the gay rights movement. “Labour as a whole was very unfortable associatg self wh what ntued to terpret as a bourgeois and dangero issue, ” wr historian Lucy Robson Gay Men and the Left Post-War Bra. Those class tensns were a major ponent of the homosexualy issue Bra.

JEREMY THORPE AND HIS DOWNFALL: THE 1970S GAY SEX SNDAL THAT VOLVED ATTEMPTED MURR, A AD DOG AND THE LIBERAL PARTY LEAR

” In one episo, Lord Grantham exc the homosexual behavr of his footman, Thomas, sayg such cints happened regular when Lord Grantham attend Eton, a private school. Regardls of how historilly accurate the earl’s reactn to his servant’s behavr was, is te that gay experimentatn flourished upper-class, sex-segregated is like boardg school, the ary, and the clergy.

His exposure slowed the progrs of the LGBTQ movement; wasn’t until 1984 that Brish polician Chris Smh beme the first to e out as gay. Gay Rights,. Although he was not one of those at Eton who had a reputatn for homosexual pas, he veloped the ual csh on schoolfellows, and gave his iends to unrstand that the sometim went beyond the purely was one cint, notor among those who got to hear of , when he tried to force his attentns on a younger boy the hoe boy (Michael Haslam, elr brother of the future signer Nicky Haslam) ped, but Thorpe ed astonishment by subsequently tellg every boy the hoe (most of whom as yet knew nothg of the episo): ‘I know what they’re sayg about me — and ’s not te!

’It was a technique of stout nial which he would employ throughout his nials were never more vehement than the se of Norman Stt, who 30 years later would acce Thorpe of havg had a homosexual relatnship wh him — leadg to Thorpe’s rignatn as Liberal lear, and his subsequent trial (and acqutal) at the Old Bailey on charg of havg nspired to have Stt one exceptn, Thorpe would never be able to adm publicly to his homosexualy or talk about openly — even at the end of his life, when attus had changed and everyone knew about his sole exceptn was the admissn at his trial — slipped by his fence unsel, Gee Carman — that as a young man Thorpe had posssed ‘homosexual tennci’ ncsn was ma wh reluctance solely to prevent the prosecutn llg wns to Thorpe’s past sex life, and the jury never learnt further tails of the high-risk double life that Thorpe, seemgly a voted hband and father, had been livg sce his early, the extent of that promiscuo and hazardo double life has not been ma public until today. One person who knew Thorpe even believed that Stt may not have been the first nvenient ex-lover whom Thorpe tried to get out of the down for vio Fascatn: After a lifetime of troubl, Thorpe's former lover Henry Upton (pictured) disappeared 1957To judge the credibily of this extraordary suggtn, we mt first look at the broar ntext of Thorpe’s Eton and Oxford, he me to live London, set on beg a barrister and polician, and drifted to the shadowy homosexual subculture of the urse, very few who knew him were aware of his secret proclivi at this time (though the future Liberal lear Jo Grimond later claimed to have duced them om his exhibnism and his close relatnship wh his mother) Thorpe, homosexualy reprented an excg and nspiratorial world.

JEREMY THORPE’S GAY EX-LOVER NORMAN STT FACE-TO-FACE WH WOULD-BE ASSASS FOR FIRST TIME

He ed no further 12 years later, the police ed took an tert his se, tendg to ll him as a prosecutn wns at Thorpe’s trial, had Jeremy not ma his tactil admissn of past ‘homosexual tennci’. He once surprised Lloyd Gee’s dghter Lady Olwen Jon by visg her Wal wh a handsome workg-class youth he troduced as his London, his homosexual life was centred on the Natnal Liberal Club and the Reform Club, both of which at the time posssed flourishg clanste homosexual the Natnal Liberal Club, some male staff were available ‘after hours’ for assignatns. At the Reform Club, Thorpe was quickly absorbed to a distguished homosexual aterny which clud QCs, mm curators, civil servants, dons, wrers and an ement eye member of the Reform relled dg there wh him and then the two of them gog off to vis the Standard, a pub on Picdilly Circ known for soldier prostut, and the Salisbury on St Mart’s Lane, a theatril hang-out.

Thorpe would never be able to adm publicly to his homosexualy or talk about openly, except durg his trial, when his fence barrister nced that as a young man he had 'homosexual tennci'On such ocsns, Thorpe — who would often be gog on to the Hoe of Commons to vote — would pull his homburg low over his ey a furtive, play-actg his North Devon nstuency, his sexual preferenc were ‘mon knowledge’, acrdg to a secret report by the Chief Constable of Devon, and regard as one of his many eccentrici. Visg distant parts of the Commonwealth to report for the TV show This Week, he ma discreet advanc towards hotel a tour of Ameri, he wrote to iends of his light at the ‘gay’ life of San Francis, which he had joyoly dulged. Upton imbued Thorpe wh his personal philosophy - that one should surrenr to one’s most sir, and that the normal l did not apply to the great on of this world A nspicuo and lourful figure Jeremy Thorpe’s early homosexual life was Henry Upton, only son and heir of Visunt, blond, and handsome, Upton was a racy and charismatic charmer, wh a swashbucklg air and a passn for motorcycl.

FURY OF JEREMY THORPE'S GAY LOVER AS TV DRAMA TURNS HIS ORAL TO 'A EDY'

Get the ee Morng Headl email for news om our reporters across the worldSign up to our ee Morng Headl emailIf they hadn’t shot the dog, there would probably have been no Very English would have been no BBC mi-seri of that name 43 years later, wh the role of Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe beg played, an spired b of stg, by Hugh Grant, an actor wh first-hand experience of what a sndal feels the shootg of Rka the Great Dane a raswept layby on Exmoor on October 23 1975 set motn a cha of events that fally exposed a sndal that might otherwise have la dormant the glterg reer of Jeremy Grant as Jeremy Thorpe the forthg BBC seri (Ray Burmiston/BBC/Blueprt/Amazon/Sony)As the tle of the BBC seri impli, was ed a very English sndal, veerg between tragedy and saw Thorpe - Eton, Oxford, Inns of Court - tried and acquted of nspiracy to murr alongsi a u mache salman scribed by the judge as "the sort of man whose taste might n to a cktail bar the livg-room" seemed to expose a certa kd of upper class sense of entlement, and feed off a wispread, if ocsnally hypocril homophobia that damaged both accer and acced. In November 1961, a week after dischargg himself om a mental health clic, the now-jobls Stt went to the Hoe of Commons to look up than fob off a young man he barely knew, Thorpe drove Stt to his mother’s hoe troduced him to his mother as ‘Peter’, a TV meraman for a documentary he was about to prent, and after dner, showed him to the spare this, acrdg to Stt, is where the sex started – six years before homosexualy was partially crimalised 1967. UK news picturShow all 50In the bgraphy, Bloch says that Thorpe paid Stt’s rent, gave him pocket money and treated him to outgs to Parliament, the Reform Club and expensive London rtrants, while lettg him orr bpoke cloth om his his ath December 2014 Thorpe claimed that this had merely been an affectnate iendship, wh no sex volved at any there is evince to suggt the twice-married Thorpe did have sex wh other men, at a time when homosexualy was one recently unvered letter, wrten 1961, Thorpe nfid to an Amerin iend: “How I adored SF [San Francis]… Certaly is the one cy where a gay person n let down his fenc and feel ee and unhunted … If I’m ever driven out of public life Bra for a gay sndal then I shall settle SF!

”One Private Eye wrer, a book to celebrate the magaze’s 50th anniversary, scribed Stt as havg appeared to be “a classic example” of a loon: “So obssed and damaged by his own story he was unable to tell clearly, wafflg on at such length about the supposed theft of his Natnal Insurance rd that the other part of his story – that he had had a lengthy affair wh Thorpe when homosexualy was illegal – did not get taken serly.

”The judge’s summg up do seem to have been somethg to acced Newton of lyg bee he was so "termed to k the se as hard as he n" that was nothg pared to what he said about Stt, the man allegg a gay love affair. )More From Town & CountryThough the tular sndal may be sgular but the story's many layers of ntroversy punctured the sulary of mid-century Bra: The shockg fact of a polician acced of a monstro act; the illic relatnship between two men at a time of wispread homophobia; and the power and class dispary between Thorpe, a wealthy polician, and Stt, a stable the trailer:This ntent is imported om youTube. '"It was a dangero time to be gay.