Tom Watson letter did not lead to Leon Brittan being interviewed, says CPS

Vikram Dodd and Rajeev Syal

Tom Watson’s controversial letter to Britain’s top prosecutor did not lead to Leon Brittan being interviewed by police over sex abuse allegations, the Crown Prosecution Service has said.

The CPS said a letter it received from Watson complaining about the case was not passed to Metropolitan police detectives investigating the former Tory cabinet minister until after they had interviewed Brittan under criminal caution.

Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, has been at the centre of a firestorm over his role in the treatment of Brittan and has been called to appear before MPs on the home affairs committee next week.

Conservative MPs are furious with Watson over his pursuit of Brittan, who was suffering from cancer in his final months, as well as the Labour MP’s comment soon after Brittan died that the Tory peer was “close to evil”.

Brittan died in January 2015 without knowing that he had been cleared of suspicion over the allegation that he had raped a woman. It has emerged that Watson had previously written to the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, about an allegation of rape when he learned that the police inquiry was being dropped.

The CPS said it had not pressured the police, but merely passed on Watson’s letter “to the relevant officer for their information”.

The letter to Saunders, who is head of the CPS, was received in the final week of April 2014, but it was not passed to police until the first week of June. Brittan was interviewed by Met detectives on 30 May.

In a statement, the CPS said: “The CPS at no point made any request to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) that they reopen their investigation into Lord Brittan in relation to complaints highlighted by Tom Watson MP.

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