Leon Brittan’s widow has broken her silence, branding Tom Watson ‘untruthful’ and ‘disingenuous’ over his dealings with a convicted fantasist and paedophile.

Lady Brittan has told friends of her disgust at the ‘awful allegations’ levelled against the former home secretary by Labour’s deputy leader just four days after her husband’s death.

Lady Brittan was in deep grief when Mr Watson wrote an article in a tabloid newspaper in which he quoted Carl Beech describing the Conservative peer “as close to evil as a human being could get”.

Beech has since been convicted of perverting the course of justice and fraud over invented allegations that Lord Brittan along with Sir Edward Heath, and Field Marshall Lord Bramall were part of a sadistic paedophile gang that murdered and raped young boys. Beech has also pleaded guilty to separate paedophile offences and faces years in jail.