Jeremy Thorpe after discovery by the "Daily Mail". Bessell gave muddled accounts of his involvement with Scott, but insisted that his former chief was innocent of any wrongdoing. On 16 March 1976 Newton's trial began at Exeter Crown Court, where Scott repeated his allegations against Thorpe despite the efforts of the prosecution's lawyers to silence him. Newton was found guilty and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, but did not incriminate Thorpe. The erosion of public support for the Liberal Party continued with several poor by-election results in March, which the former leader Grimond attributed to increasing lack of confidence in Thorpe. On
Jeremy Thorpe that, Thorpe looked elsewhere, in particular to Devon and Cornwall, where the party had long-standing traditions and had polled respectably in 1950 and 1951. In these elections Thorpe had assisted the Liberal candidate for North Cornwall, Dingle Foot, whose agent recommended him to the neighbouring North Devon constituency. The Torrington local party was also anxious to adopt Thorpe as their candidate, while Foot saw him as a possible successor in North Cornwall. Thorpe chose to fight North Devon, a seat once held by the Liberals although, in 1951, the party had finished in third place behind Conservative and Labour, with