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 House of Commons in 1453–54, notwithstanding the unlikelihood of any link between these figures, and lack of proof to corroborate a link with Jeremy Thorpe's own family. The more recent Thorpe ancestors were Irish, stemming from the elder of two brothers, according to family tradition soldiers under Cromwell during the combat in Ireland. Both were rewarded with land, the younger branch – of County Carlow – prospering in Dublin as High Sheriffs and Lord Mayors, but the elder losing its land and becoming tenant farmers and tradesmen. Jeremy Thorpe's great-grandfather, William Thorpe, was a Dublin policeman who, having been a