Police Still Probing Leon Brittan Rape Claim

Scotland Yard says it will continue to investigate allegations former Home Secretary Leon Brittan raped a woman in 1967, despite his death.

The Metropolitan Police Service has confirmed that a review of the case "remains ongoing".

It follows allegations by a woman that she was raped at a flat in London.

The woman was over the age of 18 at the time of the alleged attack, police said.

In a statement, police said: "In late 2012, a woman alleged to the Metropolitan Police Service that she was raped by a man in 1967 at an address in London.

"An investigation was commenced by officers from the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command.

"Advice was sought from the CPS, and both police and the CPS agreed at that time that there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

"A subsequent review of the case was carried out and further lines of inquiry were conducted.

"This included in June 2014, a man aged in his 70s, being interviewed under caution by appointment at a central London location in connection with the allegation. He was not arrested.

"After further consultation with the CPS, it was confirmed that those additional inquiries had not strengthened the original evidence; but police have subsequently been carrying out a further review of the case which remains ongoing."

News of the ongoing investigation comes a day after it was announced that Lord Brittan had died of cancer, aged 75.

David Cameron led the tributes, describing the former Conservative Cabinet minister and European competition commissioner as a "dedicated and fiercely intelligent public servant".

However, Lord Brittan's final months were dogged in controversy.

Last year, he became mired in the historical child sex abuse scandal after claims he was handed a dossier containing details of the abuse allegations in the 1980s.

He was accused of failing to act on the evidence passed to him by the Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983.

While he admitted he had met Mr Dickens and had been handed a file, he said he had passed it on to officials and was not contacted about the issue again.

He was elected as MP for Cleveland and Whitby in 1974 and then for Richmond, Yorks, in 1983, the year he became the youngest Home Secretary since Winston Churchill.

He was a prominent member of Margaret Thatcher's government, taking on the National Union of Mineworkers during the miners' strike in 1984-85, but resigned over his involvement in the Westland affair in 1986.