Watson: I went too far calling Brittan evil
Tom Watson has admitted going too far in describing Leon Brittan as evil when repeating child sex abuse allegations in the wake of the former Conservative Home Secretary’s death earlier this year.
The deputy Labour leader was responding to demands that he apologise for what Liberal Democrat peer Lord Lester described as a “cowardly attack” on Lord Brittan, in the wake of increasing doubt about the legitimacy of the claims.
Brittan’s brother, Sir Samuel Brittan, called on Watson to “apologise in public” for making “unforgiveable” slurs and “unfounded accusations”.
And Conservative MPNigel Evans, who was cleared of rape charges last year, accused the Labour MP of having “set himself up as judge and jury”.
In a blog on the Huffington Post yesterday, the Labour MP said: “I repeated a line used by one of the alleged survivors, who said: ‘He is close to evil as any human being could get.’ I shouldn’t have repeated such an emotive phrase.”
He added: “I have said in the past that I am sorry for the distress Leon Brittan’s family experienced as they grieved for him. I still am.”
But Mr Watson, who has raised a number of allegations of paedophile networks, stopped short of a full apology. He claimed it was his duty to demand, when writing to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, that police investigate the claims.
The late peer was questioned under caution last summer, but no further action was taken. Brittan was never informed of this. Earlier this week the Metropolitan Police apologised for failing to tell the family he had been cleared.
And on Tuesday, one of his alleged victims claimed in a BBC Panorama documentary that campaigners had pressured him into making allegations and that he had given names, including Brittan, “as a joke suggestion to start with”.
But writing in his blog yesterday, Mr Watson remained unrepentant for calling for the late peer to be investigated.
“It does not matter who you are, what you do or how powerful you might be, when someone makes an allegation against you it has to be treated seriously,” he said.