Who was Marion Thorpe? The woman who stood by Jeremy Thorpe during his conspiracy to murder trial - The Jewish Chronicle

Marion Stein was already famous when she married Jeremy Thorpe, the MP who went on to stand trial for conspiracy to murder with her by his side.

When they married in 1973 - as seen in the BBC's 'A Very English Scandal' that dramatises Mr Thorpe's trial - she was an acclaimed concert pianist who had co-founded the Leeds International Piano Competition, one of the foremost classical music competitions in the world.

She persauded her friend, the composer Benjamin Britten, to write pieces for it.

Born in Austria in 1926, her parents were Sophie Bachmann and musician Erwin Stein. Her father was Jewish and the family was forced to flee to London in 1938.

She attended the Royal College of Music where she met the compsor Benjamin Britten and in 1949, she became Countess of Harewood when she married her first husband, the 7th Earl of Harewood.

His mother, The Princess Royal, supposedly said her new daughter-in-law was "not only Jewish … she doesn’t hunt."

They had three sons together, one of whom is also a musician.

After her husband had affairs, they divorced in 1967. Marion co-wrote Piano Lessons series with Fanny Waterman, with whom she also founded the Leeds competition, which launched the careers of many young musicians.

She met Mr Thorpe through a friend, fellow pianist Moura Lympany, when he was leader of the Liberal Party and a widower whose first wife had died in a car accident.

They married in 1973, the same year in which she was a guest on BBC Radio Four's Desert Island Discs. Her discs included Mozart, Beethoven and Bach, as well as her friend Benjamin Britten.

Scandal began to envelope Mr Thorpe over the next few years. Norman Scott, with whom Mr Thorpe had an affair in the 1960s, survived a murder attempt when a man shot his dog and then tried to shoot him, only for the gun to jam.

The press began to report Mr Scott's connection to Mr Thorpe and suspicions he played a part in the murder attempt. He had to resign as party leader in 1976. Mr Thorpe was charged with conspiring to murder Mr Scott and stood trial in 1979 alongside three others.

Marion stood by his side throughout the trial. When a BBC journalist asked him if he had had a homosexual relationship with Mr Scott, Marion shouted: "Go on, stand up. Stand up and say that again."

When Mr Thorpe was acquitted, he walked out of the Old Bailey protected by a wall of police officers, waving to supporters with her by his side. She also joined him later on the balcony of their London home waving at the press and public.

Three years later, Mr Thorpe was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and Marion became his carer. No longer an MP and unwell, he largely withdrew from public life.

She was made a CBE in 2008 and died in March 2014, aged 87. Jeremy Thorpe died nine months. After Marion's death, The Daily Telegraph reported she had kept a magnificent piano in the thatched cottage the couple shared but rarely played it.