Sex abuse allegations: How did the Met get into this mess over Lord Brittan?

It smacks of a police force in a state of funk, having dropped the ball on Jimmy Savile and others

Theresa May said she is prepared to curb "excessive and disproportionate" use of powers if the police record does not improve (Getty)

Last week, the child abuse story moved on to a new chapter. Instead of putting dozens of abusers in prison, we’re in open season for shooting the messenger. The weekend's chief target in the press was Tom Watson, in part for being over-partisan, in part because of who he is, Labour’s deputy leader. But there’s also the BBC’s Panorama, the Exaro news agency, child abuse campaigner Chris Fay, accusers “Nick” and “David”, the police. Take your pick.

What was admitted last week – first revealed in The Independent on Sunday four months ago – is that the police suppressed the knowledge that a rape claim against Lord Brittan was going nowhere, so the peer died under the slur of possibly being a rapist. Could it get any worse? Yes, the police apologised “for any distress” this caused. They might just as well have added, “Lighten up, love”, for good measure. Seemingly, they thought their silence would bring pressure on the peer over the other claims against him.

Leon Brittan was at the centre of allegations concerning a dossier of child sex allegations which went missing. Brittan denied that he had failed to act on information he received (Getty)

And yet. The advice that the police received from the Crown Prosecution Service suggested the crime was not, in legal parlance, “made out”, meaning that there wasn’t any supporting evidence of a crime having been committed. There were inconsistencies in the accuser’s story. She had a history of mental health problems. To some, the dying Brittan should not even have been questioned.

Setting aside “innocent until proved guilty”, whatever happened to judgement, or even decency? Looking beyond the mere politics, this shocker smacks of a force in a state of funk, having dropped the ball on Jimmy Savile and others, terrified of being thought complicit in an establishment cover-up. It’s the job of the press and Tom Watson to raise the alarm. It’s the job of the police to bring some proportion to bear and sift the facts. Yet it has flinched under fire from the headline writers.

It smells of a force suffering from what one senior soldier calls “sitrep magic”, in which the bosses of an exhausted army, keen to impress and get on, tell their political masters, when asked for a post-cuts situation report, that all is well. “Yessir, of course we can do that,” they cry when yet further burdens are proposed, leaving their dutiful front-line troops close to collapse. Anecdotal evidence suggests appalling levels of understaffing, senior, experienced cops itching to leave, a mistrust of specialisation, and an obsession with risk-management and “how it looks”.

That zeal to get on (and an understandable fear of closing down an investigation) may explain keeping Lord Brittan in the dark, or believing untested evidence, or the treatment of Lord Bramall, Harvey Proctor and Paul Gambaccini. It doesn’t excuse it. Has London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, asked Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met’s Police commissioner, who took these decisions? Maybe he should think again about his plan to renew Sir Bernard’s contract. Accountable policing? Bring it on.