An Accidental Icon

Logged on to the Hay Book Festival  online today.
 The first  first event I listen to is a jaw dropping interview with 82 year old Norman Scott, the man whom Jeremy Thorpe, Leader of the Liberal Party hired a hit man to kill him fearing his homosexual affair with this young man would wreck his political career.


The assassin shot his dog by mistake then his gun jammed. Norman ran for his life.
 
Now he has told his story, “An Accidental Icon”, in a book about how he took on the establishment , and became in the process a gay icon, because he wanted the truth to be told. 


As a teenager he was repeatedly raped by Thorpe but the Establishment closed ranks and the judge at the Old Bailey dismissed the case saying he had shot the dog himself.
This miscarriage of justice happened over fifty years ago yet little has changed.
 
Today there are 56 Members of Parliament under investigation for sexual misconduct.
 
(Phew! makes a change from gardening).