Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, has been criticised over his role in a bungled police investigation into historic sexual abuse claims in a report that says his intervention had left officers “in a state of panic”.

Watson immediately hit back at the conclusions, claiming the report had been selectively leaked to minimise criticism of the police and that it contained “multiple inaccuracies” about his involvement.

The former high court judge Sir Richard Henriques said the case should have been dropped after the former Conservative home secretary Leon Brittan was interviewed under caution, if not before.

But he said officers may have been “in a state of panic” over a letter sent by Labour’s deputy leader on House of Commons notepaper. Henriques also said Watson “grossly insulted” one suspect who was never charged.

Watson met Carl Beech, the fantasist who fooled detectives, and helped police who wanted Beech to let them investigate his claims of abuse – later shown to be false – after he had publicised them on a website called Exaro.

Beech was at first known only by the name “Nick” and the man whose lies sparked a witch-hunt against the innocent said Watson was part of “a little group that supported me”.

Henriques’ report, commissioned by the Metropolitan police, said of Watson, who had a long standing interest in abuse cases: “There can be no doubt that Tom Watson believed Nick and it should be stated that he had previously provided the MPS with information leading to convictions in other cases. His interest, however, in both Operation Midland and Operation Vincente created further pressure upon MPS officers.”

Quick Guide What was Operation Midland and how did it go wrong? Show What was Operation Midland? Operation Midland was set up by the Metropolitan police in November 2014 to examine allegations of child sexual abuse and homicide. It was based on false claims by Carl Beech, known as "Nick", that he was abused by public figures of authority from 1975 to 1984, and witnessed the abuse of others. He made widely reported false allegations about being taken to parties at exclusive private members’ clubs, in Dolphin Square in London and other locations – including swimming pools – attended by among others the former prime minister Sir Edward Heath, the former home secretary Leon Brittan, the then chief of defence staff Lord Bramall, the ex-MI5 chief Sir Michael Hanley, as well as the former Tory MP Harvey Proctor. Operation MIdland was closed in March 2016 with no charges brought. Beech was jailed for 18 years in July 2019 for making the claims. He is appealing against the conviction and the sentence.

A 2016 report into the investigation said it was ‘riddled with errors’, identifying 43 individual errors made by officers, that the team misled a judge to get search warrants, and finding that five officers, including four detectives and a deputy assistant commissioner, would be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission for failings.



Brittan was also the subject of a historic rape claim from a woman known as Jane. She was angry when police dropped the case without interviewing Brittan.

Watson wrote a letter to the head of the Crown Prosecution Service intervening in the case.

Henriques said the Met was wrong to subject Brittan to an interview over a 1967 rape allegation, and ignored the views of one of its senior detectives that there was no case to answer.

Henriques, in his report, says the investigation of Brittan over the rape claim could have ended 16 months earlier than it did, and should have been halted in June 2014.

The report says: “A possible inference is that the officers, then responsible, were in a state of panic induced by Mr Watson’s letter.”

The review says Watson described Lord Brittan as being as “close to evil as any human being could be”, and condemns the Labour MP, saying he “grossly insulted” the former home secretary.

Watson claims he was quoting the words of an alleged victim.

Henriques condemns the Met’s pursuit of Brittan over the 1967 rape allegation. The former home secretary died in January 2015 without being told the case against him was being dropped.

“The prolonged extension of both this investigation and Operation Midland was unjustifiable and most unfair to the Brittan family. Both investigations should have been completed very much sooner. Lord Brittan should have been informed that no further action would be taken against him during his lifetime,” the report says.

In a statement, Watson said: “It is unfortunate that this review, which contains multiple inaccuracies regarding myself, has been selectively leaked, seemingly to refocus criticism away from the Metropolitan police.

“The report doesn’t make clear the key point that Lord Brittan was interviewed by the police before they received my letter … ex-director of public prosecutions Alison Saunders publicly confirmed that my letter was not received by police until after the interview. It therefore cannot be argued that it was pressure from me that led to Lord Brittan being interviewed.

“I have always said that it wasn’t my place to judge whether sexual abuse allegations were true or false – that was for the police. The police asked me to encourage the hundreds of people that came to me with stories of child abuse to report their stories to the police. That is what I did.”

The former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, a target of the Midland investigation, said: “The problem was that the police assigned to interview Beech lacked common sense and yielded to intense pressure from Tom Watson, an irresponsible politician out for his own publicity in order to galvanise his advancement to become deputy leader of the Labour party.”

Lady Brittan told the Times; “The extent of Tom Watson’s involvement in the witch-hunt of innocent people has been laid bare. His subsequent attempts to distance himself show a complete lack of integrity. By misusing his public office to recklessly repeat false allegations, and to characterise himself as a victim, he has shown that he is unfit to hold the office of MP.”

Ben Emmerson QC, the former lead lawyer for the government’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, praised Watson’s approach.

“Mr Watson was quite open, and told me that it was not his role to assess the credibility of the individual allegations he had received, but merely to ensure that they were properly investigated. Due to the sheer volume of complaints that were received in his office, he felt that it was his duty as a parliamentarian to use his platform to ensure that proper resources were put into discovering if there had been a paedophile ring operating with connections to Westminster. … His response to my questions was measured and sensible.”



