FORMER home secretary Leon Brittan should have been informed before he died that a rape allegation against him had been dropped, one of the UK's most senior police officers has said.

Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse wrote to Lord Brittan's widow, Diana, to apologise for failing to tell the family the peer, who served as MP for Cleveland and Whitby and Richmond, had been cleared and that no further action was to be taken.

Lord Brittan, of Spennithorne, near Leyburn, died of cancer earlier this year, but was unaware that police had decided there was no case for him to answer over allegations that he raped a 19-year-old student in 1967.

The Crown Prosecution Service 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 MP Tom Watson wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions and Lord Brittan was interviewed under caution, when he was seriously ill.

Allegations again fell through, but his family were again not told.

Mr Rodhouse wrote to Lady Brittan's lawyers, Mishcon de Reya, saying: "I do recognise that this clarity should have been provided at an earlier stage and I apologise for any distress that this has caused to Lady Brittan."

A spokesman for Scotland Yard refused to comment on the letter, saying: "We will not comment on confidential correspondence.

"We do not identify anyone who may or may not be subject to our investigations."

The apology from Scotland Yard comes after a BBC Panorama investigation into allegations about a so-called Westminster paedophile ring, which is said to have murdered three boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

The programme featured a man, known only as David, saying he might have been led into making the claims by campaigners and had provided the names of VIPs, including Lord Brittan, "as a joke suggestion to start with".

The Met said it had "serious concerns" about the impact of the programme on Operation Midland - its investigation into historical child sex abuse and murder - and any effect it might have on witnesses and the willingness of victims to come forward.

In March, police were accused for insensitivity after launching dawn raids six weeks after the Tory grandee's death at his Spennithorne home, where his widow, Diana lives, and at his London property, as part of Operation Midland.