BIGGEST BRITISH SCANDAL IN YEARS
Politician charged in plot to murder male model
LONDON (Reuter) — Jeremy Thorpe, former leader of the British Liberal party, was charged today with conspiracy to commit murder, a police spokesman said.
In the biggest political scandal to rock British politics in recent years, Thorpe, 49, was charged with conspiring with three others to1 kill a former friend, one-time male model Norman Scott.
Thorpe, who resigned from the Liberal leadership in May, 1976, after holding the post since 1967, has always strenuously denied allegations of a homosexual affair with Scott.
He resigned from the job five months after Scott, 35. said in a courtroom that he was being
hounded because they once had an affair.
The charges were filed at the west England port of Minehead, not far from Scott’s home, the police spokesman said.
The spokesman identified those charged with Thorpe as David Holmes, 47, former deputy treasurer of the Liberal party; John le Mesurier, 44, a businessman, and George Dcakin, a businessman from South Wales.
The spokesman said all four would appear in court later today at Minehead.
The charges came after a long police investigation into allegations that the four men plotted to kill Scott.
In October, 1977, former airline pilot
THORPE
SCOTT
Andrew Newton told newspapers he had been paid $10,000 by a prominent Liberal supporter to kill Scott.
“I was hired to kill Scott because his story of a homosexual relationship with Thorpe would be disastrous,” Newton claimed.
Even after Thorpe resigned as leader of Britain's third-largest party in 1976, he remained one of his party’s 13 members of Parliament and its spokesman on foreign affairs.
Today, with a policeman sitting on either side of him, Thorpe was driven from his Devon constituency to Minehead to be charged.
It was the latest chapter in a career that
has been dogged by tragedy. Educated at Eton, and Oxford University and trained as a lawyer, he had a mercurial rise to the Liberal leadership.
He did not marry until he was 39 and had a son, Rupert. But his first wife, Caroline, died in a 1970 car crash. In 1973, he married the Viennese-born concert pianist Marion Stein, who had earlier divorced her first husband, the Earl of Harewood, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth.
He has strongly denied any sexual relationship with Scott, although he has said he first met Scott in 1961, when Scott sought his help, and they had been friends briefly.
The
Friday, August 4,1978 Vol. 22; No. 152 '
Citizen
20‘ Copy
Prince George. British Columbia
'FRIENDLY GAMES'
Citlzro photo by Dour Wellrr
The areas in front of the four city liquor stores turned into waiting rooms Friday morning as 5,000 cases of locally brewed beer arrived. The cases were taken out the front Local brew arrives as ,ast as they arrived in the back of the stores. The Tenth Avenue liquor store sold out
its allotment of 1,280 cases in 45 minutes. Some imported beer also went on sale at the stores.
'Mickey Mouse for unity7
QUEBEC (CP) - Quebec Environment Minister Marcel Leger says the federal government has given Walt Disney Productions a $2-million contract to prepare television advertising to promote Canadian unity in Quebec’s coming independence referendum.
“The federal government, via our token francophones
who represent the tip of the iceberg of Anglo-Saxon power in the federal regime, already has a propaganda program with a $50-million budget including a project given to the Walt Disney firm at a cost of $2 million for televised advertising very soon,” Leger said in an interview Thursday.
He gave no further details.
The late Walt Disney created a cast of well-known cartoon characters including Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The family entertainment empire he created also produces films on varied topics including wildlife, family pets and American history.
Walt Disney Productions created the acclaimed film
No polio worries here
There is no great polio scare in Prince George as no cases have been reported, says the medical officer of health for the northern interior.
But Dr. Andrew Ross today advised people travelling to the areas where the disease has been diagnosed to cancel the trip unless it is essential.
And he says to ask visitors coming from those areas not to come here.
The areas include Chil-
liwack, Lethbridge, Alberta and Oxford County in Ontario.
‘‘Meantime he says ‘‘I think at the present time for those people living in Prince George, thereisn’ta very bigconcern.”
Ross says he wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of a vaccination program in light of the five cases of the disease discovered in the past few days.
But he says he does not know if it will be just in selected areas or throughout the whole
province. He is awaiting word on this froYn Victoria.
He says ‘‘quite a few” people have called the health unit to inquire whether it is safe to travel to Chilliwack, where one of the cases has been found.
Ross is telling them to stay home unless the trip is an essential one. If it is essential he is telling them to make sure their shots have been received.
See also page 6
presenting a glowing coast-to-coast |)ortrayal of Canada on a 360-degree wrap-around screen in the Bell Canada pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal.
Leger said the pro-independence side in the referendum campaign faces five chief obstacles: the massive opposition of English-speaking voters, hostility from the business world, federal intervention, negative action from the news media and, among proindependence forces, overconfidence, lack of organization and discipline.
In Ottawa, a spokesman in Prime Minister Trudeau’s office denied as “a fabrication” Leger’s statement that the federal government is financing a TV advertising campaign against Quebec independence under contract to Walt Disney Productions, or that there is a $50-million federal propaganda budget.
CBC
going
FM
Prince George will be losing its CBC-AM programming but will gain a better quality FM service within 12-18 months.
This is what Alf Engel, the CBC supervisory technician for the Prince George area, says will result from the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission approval today of two CBC English-language radio stations in B.C. The other CBC FM station will be located in Masset.
Engel said the new CBC station here would be able to reach from 60-100 miles outside Prince George. The present CBC-AM station lias a range of about 20 miles outside the city.
World views sunny start
by PETER CALAMAI Southum News Services EDMONTON - Mark well the time and date: 3:56 p.m. Aug. 3
That’s when the overseas world discovered our northernmost city with the official opening Thursday here of the XI Commonwealth Games by Queen Elizabeth II.
Even if the French announcing in the brand-new Stadium wasn’t quite up to international standards, the foreign stereotype of-a snowbound land melted for an estimated halfbillion television viewers during two hours of brilliant, cloudless sunshine.
The smirch on the nation’s reputation by the boycotted 1976 Olympics faded rapidly here as 45 Commonwealth
nations and Canada dipped their flags in colorful parade past Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip; only major absences were Uganda and Nigeria, which pulled out at the last minute in a sports apatheid protest.
The made-for-television pageant and march-past even included a ringer—noted British sportswriter Ian Wooldridge— who evaded supposedly watertight Games security by marching in blue blazer and grey trousers as an official Cayman Islands team member.
Queen Elizabeth’s appearance before the packed stands of 42,500 was only the mid-point of a hectic day which also featured the most enthusiastic walkabout so far in the 12-day
Ban on campfires in our woods area
Continuing hot weather has forced the provincial forest ministry to impose a campfire ban in the Prince George forest district.
The ban was effective midnight Thursday.
Included in the closure are areas from Cinema and Hixon in the south to the Pine Pass and Fort Ware in the north and from Purden Lake in the east through to Endako in the west.
A campfire ban also exists in the Prince Rupert forest district.
The suspension does not apply to provincial parks, camping and picnic grounds or to any commercial camping and picnic grounds that are supervised.
Municipal land is also not affected.
Although most provincial parks are not affected by the ban, a campfire ban exists in Purden Lake provincial park because of the danger from trees blown over by high winds in 1975.
The hot weather has also forced Northwood Pulp and Timber to shut down all logging operations in the Houston area.
A partial closure went into effect Monday near Babine Lake but company officials shut down all logging today.
About 200 loggers work for Northwood near Houston.
Russ Trenaman, a fire duty officer with the Prince George forest district, said today the
fire hazard has climbed from moderate to high in the McBride and Valemount areas and continues to be high to extreme in the Prince George region.
The Peace River is recording a moderate hazard.
Trenaman said the forest ministry doesn’t expect to order any logging closures in this area, preferring to let timber companies police themselves.
He said it’s advantageous to have the crews in the woods because they’ll be handy if there’s a forest fire.
Forty-two fires are currently burning under control in the Prince George forest district which stretches from the Yukon border to Valemount and from Endako in the west to the Alberta border.
Six fires started since Thursday, four caused by careless campers.
No paper on Monday
In observation of the B.C. Day holiday weekend, The Citizen will not publish Monday.
Regular publication will resume Tuesday with complete coverage of news and sports on the internationa, national and local scene. Have a good holiday.
Royal Tour, a municipal banquet and a Commonwealth Games reception.
With Prime Minister Trudeau standing only yards away, the Queen welcomed the 2,000-plus competitors in her status as ‘‘Queen of Canada."
Critics of the Trudeau government’s latest constitutional proposals claim the Queen will be ousted as Canada’s head of state by a politically-appointed Governor-General.
But this controversy was far from most minds in the sun parched stadium, where the crowd applauded without prompting but managed only a weak warbling of ‘O Canada’ ‘‘The crowd took the Queen to their hearts.” said John Aimers, national chairman of the Monarchy League in Canada. “This has done mere for the monarchy than anything else in a long time.” Staging of “The Friendly Games” almost on budget and with only minor hitches has also done a great deal for the once-rambunctous capital ol Alberta.
“We won’t be mistaken for a dot on the map any longer." says mayor Cec Purves.
While the false store facades from the annual frontier hijinks of Klondike Days are still in place downtown. Edmonton now also has cosmopolitan. international trappings—a polyglot population (albeit temporary), a scarcity of taxicabs, chock-full hotels, escorted motorcades and imported prostitutes charging $100 a trick.
EDMONTON I CP) - Transit workers, who early toda\ honored picket lines set up by striking electrical workers, have been ordered to return to work.
It was feared that disruption of the city’s transit service would have curtailed attendance at the Commonwealth Games, officially opened Thursday by Queen Elizabeth.
The provincial board of industrial relations granted an application by the city for a cease-and-desist order, compelling transit workers to return to work immediately.
For several hours during the morning rush period, visitors to the Games and 70.000 work-bound commuters scrambled for taxis, joined car pools or thumbed rides from motorists to get to their destinations.
TODAY
FEATURED INSIDE
THE WEATHER
This week:
Killed..............................1
Injured.........................17
Arrested as impaired35 This year:
Killed............................11
Inju red.......................50K
To same date 1977:
Killed............................19
Injured.......................561
Champs are coming
\ The Australian national field lacrosse team — former world champins - play here Sunday night. Page 7.
Air traffic resumes
Air Canada machinists, whose walkout has crippled air travel in eastern Canada, is over everywhere but Montreal, and air traffic is starting to return to normal. Page 6.
J
Index -
City, H.C............ ..2, .J, 13, 19
Classified...........
Editorial............. ..................1
Entertainment.. ...........M-1G
Horoscopes..................'12, .'M
International......................5
National..............................0
Rolling Stone...................1(1
Sports...............................7-9
Television.........................15
Wenzel column................19
The forecast for Prince George today and during the long weekend is for sunny skies with afternoon cloudy periods and widely scattered thunder showers.
Temperatures during the long weekend should be cooler than today.
The expected high today is 30, the low 6. Saturday’s expected high is 24.
The high Thursday was 32, which beat the previous record high of 30 set on that date in 1961. The low overnight was 11, with no precipitation. On this date last year the high was 24, the low 9.
NOW HEAR THIS
• Ask a civil servant a straight question and what do you get? Donald Murphy, the director of the consumer services branch of the federal government was asked who is right, those who say the price of food is a crime or those who say Canadians are lucky to get food as cheaply as they do. They’re both right, he answered. Thanks.
• A local man has finally figured out what’s been happening to his missing mail. He kept complaining to the post office about mail that wasn’t being delivered, and solved the mystery only when the mailman mentioned he wasn’t able to stuff any more mail into the man’s “letterbox” That’s when the resident started checking a ventilation outlet for his letters.
• Bemoaned one woman waiting in the long line for beer this morning: “I can see lining up, waiting ages for mother’s milk for a baby, but I never thought I’d see the day I’d stand in a line for a case of beer.”