Simon Warr: "Tom Watson Should Have Been More Careful" With Abuse Allegations

27 July 2019, 10:33 | Updated: 27 July 2019, 10:41

A former teacher and BBC contributor wrongly accused of child abuse has said that Tom Watson "should have been more careful" with allegations.

Simon Warr, a former teacher who was wrongly accused of child sexual abuse, has said that Deputy Labour Leader Tom Watson was too quick to act following false allegations made by Carl Beech.

Mr Warr was arrested in 2012 in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal, after being accused of inappropriately touching a pupil in a PE lesson in the 1980s.

The allegation were found to be untrue, but Mr Warr claims it damaged many parts of his life regardless.

In an interview with LBC, Mr Warr warned against "mass moral panic" and urged public figures to be more careful about publicising abuse allegations when there is little evidence.

He said: "I was arrested just after the Jimmy Savile expose, when a mass moral panic gripped this country.

"When we have these mass moral panics, the first casualties are reason and logic.

"In my case, there wasn't a smidgen, an iota, a kernel of evidence to suggest that what was alleged could possibly have happened."