//His use of his power to influence the Carl Beech debacle is a stain on his character, but as he retires to private life, he will hope that it will not impact on him,...//
And I will hope that it does.
Watson had lobbied successfully Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions to reopen Operation Vincente, an investigation into an alleged rape in 1967 by Leon Brittan. The police had concluded initially that the allegation, made in 2014 by a woman with a history of mental health problems, was false. As a result of reopening the case, Brittan was interviewed under caution when he was gravely ill and was not told before his death that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him. In the meantime Mr Watson
had described Lord Brittan as being as “close to evil as any human being could be”, without a shred of credible evidence whatsoever. He was the nonce-finder general who had used his position to bring misery to a number of people. I hope the "stain on his character" follows him around for the rest of his life in the same way that he expected Harvey Procter to be sullied.