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 Hunt Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (born 1 November 1966) is a British Conservative Party politician serving as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs since 2018 and Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Surrey since 2005. Hunt identifies as a one-nation conservative, and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies. He has been characterised as a "metropolitan liberal" by the "Financial Times". Hunt was born in Kennington and studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. He was first elected to the