A former Minister last night took the sensational step of stating that Leon Brittan stood accused of ‘multiple child rape’.

Tom Watson, a Defence and Cabinet Office Minister under Labour, said he had spoken to a man who said the former Home Secretary raped him as a child, and a woman who said he raped her in 1967. He added that he knew of two other similar cases.

Mr Watson said: ‘Many others knew of these allegations and chose to remain silent. I will not. The police must continue their investigations.’

A former Minister last night took the sensational step of stating that Leon Brittan (pictured) stood accused of ‘multiple child rape’

He said he had not previously spoken out against Brittan, who died of cancer last Wednesday aged 75, because he did not want to prejudice any trial.

And he likened the tributes paid to the Tory peer to those heaped on Jimmy Savile, whose offences were not uncovered until after his death in 2011.

The MP wrote in the Sunday Mirror: ‘How those journalists who wrote tributes to Savile must regret them now.

Tom Watson (pictured), a Defence and Cabinet Office Minister under Labour, said he had spoken to a man who said the former Home Secretary raped him as a child, and a woman who said he raped her in 1967

‘Savile was protected by a culture that worshipped at the altar of celebrity. Was Brittan protected by a misplaced sense of deference to the powerful?’

Brittan had faced allegations of a ‘lurid sex scandal’ in the 1980s, but at the time the claims were dismissed.

Last year he was questioned over the alleged rape of a 19-year-old woman in 1967, although he was not arrested or charged.

He was also accused of failing to act on a now-missing dossier on alleged VIP child abusers while at the Home Office.

Scotland Yard declined to comment last night, but they have said the 1967 case was under review.