UK police to reopen famous political attempted-murder probe
LONDON — Police are reopening an investigation into one of Britain’s most notorious scandals because a main suspect who was thought to have died may be alive, the BBC reported Saturday.
The decision is the latest twist in the story of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, who was accused of plotting to kill his gay ex-lover Norman Scott in the 1970s.
In 1975, Scott was driven to a remote rural spot by a man who fatally shot Scott’s Great Dane, Rinka, in what Scott said was a botched murder attempt.
Scott maintained he had had an affair with Thorpe in the 1960s, when homosexuality was illegal in Britain, and that the Liberal lawmaker — one of the era’s biggest political stars — wanted to silence him.