Thorpe affair insurance card prevented him from claiming benefits. By this time, Thorpe had succeeded Jo Grimond as leader of the Liberal Party. To resolve Scott's immediate problems, and to prevent a resumption of his tirades against the new party leader, Bessell began paying him a "retainer" of between £5 and £10 a week, ostensibly in lieu of lost national insurance benefits. Bessell also arranged Scott's new passport, but by this time Scott had abandoned his American plans and wished to establish a career as a model. He asked Bessell for £200 to set him up; Bessell refused, but in May 1968
Jeremy Thorpe party enquiry which cleared Thorpe and left Scott feeling bitter and humiliated. After Parry-Jones's death the following year, Scott fell into a depression and for a while was quiescent. In time, however, he began to tell his story to anyone who would listen. By 1974 Thorpe, at the crest of the Liberal revival, was terrified of exposure that might lose him the Liberal leadership. As Dominic Sandbrook observes in his history of the times: "The stakes had never been higher; silencing Scott had never been more urgent". Over the years Scott made several attempts to publicise his story, but no