Peter Joseph Bessell was a British Liberal Party politician, and Member of Parliament for Bodmin in Cornwall from 1964 to 1970.
16 Facts About Peter Bessell
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Peter Bessell was born at a nursing home in Bath, son of tailor Joseph Edgar Bessell and Olive Simons, nee Hawkins.
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Peter Bessell's parents divorced in 1926 and Bessell lived with his father.
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Peter Bessell was educated at Lynwyd School, Bath, and when his father died in 1940, Bessell took over the business.
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Peter Bessell first stood for parliament as a Liberal in Torquay in both the 1955 general election, and the by-election there later that year.
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Peter Bessell stood again at the 1964 general election, defeating Marshall with a majority of more than 3,000.
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Peter Bessell held the seat at the 1966 general election, despite a strong challenge from the Conservative John Gorst.
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Peter Bessell played a key role in the passage of the 1968 Transport Act that aimed to coordinate road, rail and waterway services.
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Peter Bessell did not contest the 1970 general election, when the Liberal candidate Paul Tyler lost Bodmin to the Conservative Robert Hicks.
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For most of the 1970s, Peter Bessell was under threat of prosecution for fraud allegations relating to several of these companies, although he was successful in reaching agreement with all his creditors.
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Peter Bessell was a prosecution witness at the trial of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe for the attempted murder of Norman Scott in 1979, the Thorpe affair, when he returned to Britain to testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
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Peter Bessell's evidence was controversially referred to by the judge Mr Justice Cantley, in his summing up, as "a tissue of lies"; as a key meeting concerning the conspiracy to murder occurred in varied locations in his statements.
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Peter Bessell revealed under questioning that he had signed a contract with The Sunday Telegraph for the serialisation rights of his memoirs, and that his fee would double were Thorpe to be convicted.
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Peter Bessell admitted to his having "a credibility problem" and being a compulsive liar.
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Peter Bessell married three times: Joyce Margaret Thomas, who died prematurely from tuberculosis; and Pauline Colledge, whom he divorced in 1978 to marry Diane Miller, his long-term mistress.
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Peter Bessell was portrayed by Alex Jennings in the 2018 BBC One miniseries A Very English Scandal.