Yesterday details emerged of a letter Mr Watson wrote to Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, in May 2014, in which he demanded a “full review” into claims of rape and sexual abuse. He claimed Watson had damaged Brittan’s reputation with “unforgiveable” slurs.
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Lord Brittan’s brother, Sir Samuel Brittan, called on Mr Watson, now deputy leader of the Labour Party, to apologise after police dropped an inquiry into allegations that Lord Brittan raped a 19-year-old student in 1967.
Lord Brittan died from cancer previous year with the allegations unresolved and was buried in an unmarked grave amid fears it would be vandalised. “I felt it was my duty to do so”.
Last night Mr Watson offered a hollow apology for his rape allegations against Lord Brittan.
Mr O’Brien responded to caller Michael’s argument, saying: “What the hell do we want our MPs to use their position for, if not to ensure that allegations of child sex abuse undertaken by people at the top of the parliamentary ladder have actually been properly investigated?”
After Brittan died in January, Watson wrote an article describing how the peer stood “accused of multiple child rape” and repeated accusations he said came from victims that he was “as close to evil as any human being could get”.
His brother Sir Samuel Brittan told Sky News that Mr Watson had gone too far: “I think he would do better to finding policy for Labour rather than scraping around for tittle tattle”.
He added: “As the tributes flowed in from his lifelong friends, I felt for those people who claimed he abused them”.
The Crown Prosecution Service found in July 2013 that there was not enough evidence for a prosecution but this decision was never passed on to Lord Brittan or his family.
No charges were brought after he was interviewed after becoming terminally ill.
Tory MP Nigel Evans, who has been cleared of sexual abuse himself, told the BBC that Watson had “set himself up as judge and jury”. Mr Johnson said the delay in contacting Lord Brittan was “completely unacceptable”.
Speaking at a conference in central London, she said: ‘If there are specific allegations and the police are not going to act against someone, let them know as quickly as it is practical to do so’.
The former Conservative chancellor Norman Lamont, writing in the Daily Telegraph, also attacked the police.
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He said he visited Brittan several times before he died and “saw the suffering of a man under the shadow of the vilest accusations”.
