The great acquittal
Ferdinand Mount Mr Jeremy Thorpe stands in the privacy of his own balcony, a free man. It is a riproaring finale — but a finale to what? Greek tragedy was never like this. Once again, you would have to riffle through Trollope to find such a mixture of high places and low life, such a meeting of the grand and the grubby. And this stunning reversal of fortune in the final chapter has more in common with the twists of a high Victorian novel than with the remorseless spinning of the Fates. Even Trollope, though, for all his interest in ecclesiastical life, might have drawn the line at laying on a Thanksgiving Service in the North Devon village of Bratton Fleming for his hero. The rector describes this new Te Deutn as 'a thanksgiving for the way God has answered our prayers for Jeremy and Marion in their ordeal.' Oh God, oh Bratton Fleming! As to the conduct of the actual trial, only the most temperate and delicate comments are permissible; there is nothing much to be added to the points Alan Watkins made so well in the Observer. But it is worth harking back to the Minehead committal proceedings for a minute. Those who have criticised the reporting or indeed the existence of committal hearings usually argue that for the jury to hear the evidence twice may harm the interests of the defendant. But in both the cases where the dramatic nature of the evidence provoked this argument — the Thorpe case and the case of Dr Bodkin Adams — the jury acquitted the defendants. You could just as well argue that Mr George Deakins decision to call for the magistrates' proceedings to be reported helped both himself and his co-defendants. The best argument against the existence of Committal proceedings remains that they cost a lot of money and serve no good PurPuse; but if they are to stay, they should 13. .e reported, as Sir David Napley for one trunks.
MPs are reserving most of their indignation for those newspapers which offered witnesses large sums of money and even larger sums in the event of a conviction — in effect, payment by results. Isn't this tantamount to the obstruction of justice and ought not the law to be changed? Well, either one or the other, but not both, as Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney-General, Points out; if it is obstruction of justice (or contempt of court, a more straightforward matter), then the law doesn't need to be Changed and Lord Hartwell and his editors could be standing in the same dock where late Mr Thorpe et al stood. One raises an eyebrow to see the Telegraph mob occupying the pillory usually reserved for more vulgar practitioners. I can't see much merit in the defence advanced in the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph editorials after the trial, namely, that the contract with Peter Bessell was signed only after his evidence had 'crystallised,' to use Mr Justice Cantley's term. Surely this is just the moment when the newspapers ought to stay aloof from witnesses. For if the witness steps into the witness box with the ink scarce dry on the cheque, the temptation to improve and embroider his evidence in order to earn a second cheque will be all the more immediate. By contrast, it might conceivably have been legitimate to pay Mr Bessell for his lifestory well before Mr Thorpe's arrest; after all, there might never have been any arrest and thus no course of justice to have been Interfered with; it might even have been defensible to pay for Mr Bessell's life-story after the end of the trial when the course of justice had been exhausted. But to operate an incentive scheme in between does seem to be the sort of practice which would give the News of the World a bad name.
If newspapers are to be criticised, though, it should also be pointed out that without their investigations and the lubrication of these dubious payments the prosecution might never have been launched; if the Evening News's dealings with Andrew Newton were among the most dubious, they also produced the most relevant if not the most reliable evidence. One or two MPs have argued that the prosecution should never have been launched, apparently solely on the grounds that the defendants were acquitted. By this criterion, the Director of Public Prosecutions would be expected to clock up a 100 per cent record of convictions. As Sir Michael Havers pointed out, the fact that the jury deliberated for twoand-a-half days does not suggest that the truth was easy to arrive at.
In reality, the DPP, Sir Thomas Hetherington, has behaved in copybook fashion. He took great care before the prosecution was launched, he publicly assumed personal responsibility for the decision, rightly consulting Mr Sam Silkin, the Attorney-General of the day, who equally rightly decided to take no part, seeing that Mr Thorpe was a parliamentary colleague and that the case might have general political repercussions, specifically, that it might dish the Liberals to the advantage of the Tories.
The last resort is to blame the Liberal Party or certain Liberal MPs. Mr David Steel has been criticised for going out of his way to make it clear that he wanted Mr Thorpe to make a new life anywhere except in the Liberal Party. Some say that Mr Steel was ungenerous or premature to invoke Mr George Carman's closing remark to the jury that the ordeal had 'destroyed' Mr Thorpe's parliamentary career. Had not Mr Thorpe suffered enough? You should not kick a man when he is down.
But Mr Thorpe is not down. He is fifteen foot up on a balcony, waving and holding a celebration party. He has expressed no contrition for the embarrassment he has caused to lifelong friends and colleagues. Nor has he expressed the slightest wish to return to private life. He speaks only of a 'short period of rest with my family away from the glare of further publicity'. Who can tell where he will pop up next?
Sympathy with private agony is one thing; encouragement to resume a public career is quite another. There is an endearing but misguided refusal in this country to recognise that public service is a privilege not a right and that it is possible for a man to disqualify himself permanently for public office of any kind. Mr Thorpe's acquittal makes it necessary and possible to say certain things about him which it would have been cruel and unnecessary to say if he had been found guilty and which it would have been contempt of court to say while the case was sub judice.
His behaviour over the 00,000 he received from Jack Hayward was indefensibly casual and high-handed. His behaviour towards his parliamentary colleagues throughout has been ruthless, evasive and deceitful. Consider only the personal undertakings which are said to have been given to Mr Steel. Originally Mr Thorpe had promised to resign his seat if the allegations became public. He did not resign. Then he said that if he was charged he would not stand for re-election. He stood. Then he told Mr Steel he would not be coming to last year's Liberal Assembly at Southport. And he came — gosh, how he came.
The question of his guilt or innocence of the criminal charges was not the point. The fact of being on a charge of conspiracy to murder does not licence you to break every undertaking you give to your colleagues.
I have in the past been critical of certain leading Liberals such as Mr Steel himself and Lord Byers for their handling of the affair, particularly in its early stages. Perhaps they were a little naive and indecisive. But they had a great deal to cope with and only a partial understanding of the man at the centre of the business. And if Mr Thorpe has behaved badly towards his fellow Liberal MPs, his behaviour towards the voters of North Devon in standing for Iv election while charged with conspiracy to murder was shameless. Indeed there is about his whole conduct since the beginning of the business this absence of any sense of shame — this anaideia, if you want to dignifY it with a touch of Greek.
I emphasise that none of these aspects of Mr Thorpe's behaviour is against the law of indicates that he was other than entirely innocent of the criminal charges laid against him. But it does suggest that he might benefit from a rather longer rest.
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