Black Country MP “has a lot of questions to answer” for comments about sex abuse allegations against Leon Brittan, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
said the West Bromwich East MP should “examine his conscience” for comments about Lord Brittan, the former Home Secretary.
Mr Watson, new Deputy Leader, responded to the death of the former Conservative Minister in January by repeating claims that he was “as close to evil as a human being could get”.
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The MP has already apologised for the comment, and pointed out that he was repeating a statement made by someone who claimed to be a victim of abuse.
But he’s come in for heavy criticism after it emerged police actually cleared Lord Brittan of allegations that he raped a 19-year-old woman in 1967 - but failed to tell him.
It meant Lord Brittan went to his grave without knowing that the investigation had been dropped.
Asked about Mr Watson during a visit to Devon, Mr Cameron told LBC radio: “It’s clear I think that he’s got a lot of questions to answer.
“And the House of Commons select committees are quite rightly going to ask him some questions.
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“So I’m sure that he should answer those questions and examine his conscience about whether he’s said enough so far.”
The chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee has indicated that the influential cross-party panel will decide on Tuesday whether to call Mr Watson to give evidence
Lord Brittan’s brother, the journalist Sir Samuel Brittan, has demanded that the MP apologise.
Mr Watson said that he contacted the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2014 because he felt the allegations he had been made aware of against Lord Brittan “should be fully investigated”.
The MP stated he was sorry for the “distress Leon Brittan’s family experienced as they grieved for him” as a result of the claims.
And he added: “As the tributes flowed in from his lifelong friends I felt for those people who claimed he abused them.
“I repeated a line used by one of the alleged survivors, who said, ‘He is close to evil as any human being could get’. I shouldn’t have repeated such an emotive phrase.
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“The choice facing anyone who is presented with testimony of this kind is whether to pass it on to the authorities and urge them to investigate or to ignore it.
“I chose the first option. I felt it was my duty to do so.”
Mr Watson said he believed Lord Brittan “would have been interviewed even if I hadn’t intervened because the DPP made it clear in her reply to my letter that the police investigation into him was ongoing”.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) found in July 2013 that there was not enough evidence for a prosecution, but the decision was never passed on to the peer.
The case was reopened last year after Mr Watson wrote to the DPP and police later interviewed Lord Brittan under caution, when he was seriously ill.