Jeremy Thorpe, former leader of Britain’s now defunct Liberal party and a major figure in British politics until allegations of homosexuality and a bizarre murder court case brought him down, has died at the age of 85.
The Liberal Democrats, successor to the Liberals and currently members of Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government confirmed Thorpe’s death and added in a tweet: «Our thoughts are with his family».
The BBC said he had fought a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease.
A stylish, patrician politician, he became leader of the minority Liberal Party in January 1967 and set out to restore it to the prominence it had enjoyed in the 19th century.
Once voted Britain’s favourite politician, he resigned as party leader in 1976, after former male model Norman Scott alleged they had had a homosexual relationship in the 1960s.
Thorpe, a lawyer by profession, strenuously denied any such relationship – a crime punishable by prison in the 1960s. But worse was to come.
In June 1979, he stood in the dock at London’s Old Bailey court accused of plotting to murder Scott to silence him. At the end of a hearing lasting 31 days, the jury acquitted Thorpe and three others charged with him.
But the case and the publicity surrounding it brought his political career to a premature end when he was aged only 50.
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