The Very Real Story Behind ‘A Very English Scandal’

Amazon’s new three-part drama A Very English Scandal tells the very true story of Jeremy Thorpe. In the ’60s and ’70s, Thorpe was a leading member of Great Britain’s Liberal Party and a prominent Member of Parliament. However, his political career came to a halt when it was discovered that he had not only carried on a homosexual affair with a former stable hand/fashion model named Norman Scott, but that he had conspired to murder Scott to cover the relationship up.
A Very English Scandal follows Thorpe and Scott’s relationship from the very beginning up until the landmark trial that brought every sordid detail of the liaison into the public eye. The series stars an extraordinary Hugh Grant as Jeremy Thorpe. Although American audiences might not be familiar with the case, Grant explained to a round table of journalists this week that Thorpe’s trial was pop culture circus in the UK.
“The trial was happening when I was 18, 19 [years old],” Grant said. “I’m afraid it was just a source of great schoolboy jokes — and for the whole nation, it was schoolboy jokes. It was too good to be true. It was like Monty Python: a member of the establishment, ex-Oxford and Eton, very well-connected, with his lover saying, ‘And then I had to bite the pillow.’ And the vaseline!”
Grant added, “There were thousands of jokes. ‘Join the Liberal Party and widen your circle.’ It was all that kind of stuff.”
It was all that kind of sordid stuff, and as A Very English Scandal shows, it was so much more. It was a veritable tragedy and a very serious political conspiracy. But how much of it was true and how much is false? Here’s everything you need to know about the very real story behind A Very English Scandal. 

What Is A Very English Scandal About? Everything You Need To Know About The Thorpe Affair

At some point between 1960-1961, British MP Jeremy Thorpe met a young stable hand named Norman Josiffe. During their meeting, Thorpe said that if Josiffe ever found himself in dire need of help, he could literally show up at the House of Commons and call upon his aid. In late 1961, Josiffe found himself without a job, and recovering from a mental breakdown. After leaving a clinic, Josiffe called upon Thorpe to help him out since he had left his National Insurance Card — the British version of a Social Security Card — with his former employer.
According to Norman Josiffe’s later testimony, Thorpe propositioned him at his own mother’s home and the two began a love affair. Over the next year, Thorpe provided Josiffe with a place to stay and tried to help him earn a living. However, Josiffe’s mental health deteriorated and the relationship soured — to the point where Josiffe threatened violence against himself and Thorpe. A friend who heard these threats helped Josiffe inform the police of the affair. At this time, letters were given as evidence.
As the years went on, Josiffe would travel around, struggling to find a place for himself. He alleged that although he had gotten a replacement for his National Insurance Card, Thorpe took it from him. As the years went on, Thorpe went to greater and greater extremes to silence Josiffe and kill the story of their love affair. He even asked friend and fellow politician Peter Bessel to bribe Josiffe into silence. Finally, in 1975, Thorpe hatched a conspiracy to hire Andrew Newton to kill Josiffe. In October 1975, Newton attempted to murder Josiffe, but only succeeded in killing his dog, Rinka. After this, the entire affair blew up and what followed was a salacious trial involving Thorpe, Newton, and the co-conspirators.
After a very public trial, where details of the affair were made public, the defendants were found legally not guilty. However, Thorpe’s reputation was ruined forever.

Who Was Jeremy Thorpe?

John Jeremy Thorpe was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1959-1979. He was the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1967-1976. Thorpe came from a political family, but after reading law at Oxford, he broke away from the Thorpe’s traditional Conservative values and established himself as a rising Liberal Party star.
That was Thorpe’s public life. In private life, it seems, he carried on a number of homosexual affairs, most notably with Norman Scott. In 1968, Thorpe married Caroline Allpass, who passed away in a car accident in 1970. The two had one son, Rupert. In 1973, Thorpe married Marion Stein, a concert pianist. The two remained married until her death in 2014. Stein stood by Thorpe in spite of the scandal that marred his political career. In the 1980s, Thorpe began to suffer from Parkinson’s disease.

Who Was Norman Scott?

Norman Scott is the adopted name of Norman Josiffe. He was born in Sidcup, Kent, England and spent his early life working with Bracht Van Der Vater’s horses in Kingham Stables. Scott has worked as a model and was briefly married. He has one son. He’s played by Ben Whishaw in A Very English Scandal.

Are Norman Scott and Jeremy Thorpe Still Alive?

Thorpe passed away on December 4, 2014, but Norman Scott is still very much alive. In fact A Very English Scandal star Ben Whishaw met the real Scott (who appears in a brief cameo in the series) before filming.

While Whishaw met with the real Norman Scott, Grant shied away from meeting with the real people involved. He said he turned down a chance to talk to Thorpe’s son because he “just thought it could all go wrong.”
Thorpe has been criticized since his death for living his life in the closet when he could have been a strong supporter for gay rights, but others have lauded his attention to other liberal causes. He was a notable opponent against apartheid and the Iraq War. But you know, he also tried to have Norman Scott killed…

Is Everything In A Very English Scandal True?

Well, mostly. Obviously, A Very English Scandal is a three-hour long dramatization of the Thorpe Affair. Various moments are recreated and staged to give us the biggest emotional impact, and many small details failed to make it in.
That said, the series does an incredibly good job of tracking Jeremy and Norman’s affair, falling out, and eventual trial beat-for-beat — right down to introducing all the various side characters involved. So as historical dramas go, A Very English Scandal is fairly on point.

What Was Left Out Of A Very English Scandal?

Again, it’s impossible to accurately relay each and every encounter pertinent to the Thorpe Affair into a three-hour miniseries, but one key part of the scandal was left out: Thorpe’s shadiness with money.
“Thorpe was very dodgy on money,” Grant told reporters. “He was in charge of raising funds for the Liberal Party and he used them either for himself or putting a hit on people, and none of that’s in our story.”
The actor added, “But if you talk to a lot of Liberal politicians to this day, they say that the thing that made them never want to have anything to do with Thorpe again was not being gay, was not trying to kill someone, it was the money!”
A Very English Scandal premieres on Amazon Prime Video tomorrow, June 29th.

Where to Stream A Very English Scandal