laurie53 wrote:But he was cleared of such charges!
He was cleared because the prosecuting counsel was unable to establish his guilt
beyond reasonable doubt. Doesn't mean he was innocent!
The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 decriminalised homosexual activity between consenting adults in private (quite rightly and long overdue) and I never heard of anyone being retrospectively prosecuted for alleged offences before that time. John Preston's book upon which this series is based convinced me that, while Thorpe had no reason to fear prosecution if his homosexuality became public knowledge, he was obsessed with image and the public persona he had created for himself. Thus, Scott was a potential embarrassment and had to be eliminated.
While Scott comes over as a loathsome, whingeing individual who sees all his misfortunes as somebody else's fault, one can at least perceive in his background and early life some reasons
why. Thorpe, however, comes over as an unpleasant and arrogant individual with an over developed sense of entitlement. Witness the fact that he spent so much of his final years trying to enlist the help of anyone and everyone to get himself nominated for a peerage. Out of touch with reality, or what?!
I haven't seen the tv series and, having read the book, I don't want to. My abiding sentiment upon closing the last page was one of utter sickness that the elected representatives of you and I are, collectively, such a bunch of self serving scumbags - because I really don't think anything much has changed in 40-odd years.