Jeremy Thorpe scandal: Suspect hunted by police after it emerges he may still be alive | London Evening Standard

Jeremy Thorpe scandal: Suspect hunted by police after it emerges he may still be alive Scandal: Jeremy Thorpe PA Archive/Press Association Images

Detectives were today urgently seeking the prime suspect in the alleged attempted murder of Jeremy Thorpe’s lover, in the scandal’s latest twist.

They are trying to locate Andrew Newton, who is suspected of trying to murder the former Liberal leader’s gay lover Norman Scott in 1975.

Gwent police had thought Mr Newton was dead and a new investigation into the plot was dropped.

But in a bizarre turnaround the force told BBC documentary The Jeremy Thorpe Scandal, shown last night, that they had information which suggested Mr Newton was alive.

Then the ex-pilot was tracked down to a £500,000 house near Dorking living under the name Hann Redwin.

Hann Redwin poses in a studio at the annual "Skin Two Rubber Ball 2004" at the Hammersmith Palais in 2004Getty Images

A Gwent detective travelled 160 miles to the house yesterday, only to be told by neighbours that Mr Newton had left hours earlier. There could now be a new prosecution.

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The BBC broadcast the final episode of A Very English Scandal, its dramatisation of the case starring Hugh Grant as Thorpe, last night.

Suspect: Police admitted they may have wrongly assumed Andrew Newton was deadPA

His relationship with Mr Scott took place in the early Sixties, when homosexuality was illegal. Thorpe, who died in 2014, was acquitted of conspiracy to murder after an Old Bailey trial in 1979.

A fresh probe was launched by Gwent police in 2015 after new claims emerged.

But Mr Scott, 78, was told Mr Newton, jailed for shooting his dog Rinka on Exmoor in 1975, was dead.

After Thorpe’s death Dennis Meighan, now 71, said he told police he had been offered £13,500 by Newton and a “representative” of Mr Thorpe to silence Mr Scott but his confession was covered up.