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 less than 20% of the vote. Thorpe was adopted as North Devon's Liberal candidate in April 1952. His political stance matched that of other young activists, who believed that the party should offer a radical non-socialist alternative to the Conservative government. He and others founded the Radical Reform Group, to drive the party in that direction. He spent much of his spare time cultivating the voters in North Devon; at rallies and on the doorstep he mixed local concerns with conspicuously liberal views on larger, international issues such as colonialism and apartheid. When Anthony Eden, who had succeeded Winston Churchill