 | 'The matter of Lord Watson's honorary degree in the light of today's prison sentence will be for the appropriate university committees to consider in due course.' A spokespan for the University of Abertay Dundee, 22 nd September 2005. |  |
| 'The matter of Lord Watson's honorary degree in the light of today's prison sentence will be for the appropriate university committees to consider in due course.' A spokespan for the University of Abertay Dundee, 22 nd September 2005. | |
THE disgraced Labour peer Lord Watson will not appeal against his prison sentence, but has vowed to leave Scotland after his release to relaunch his political career at Westminster, a close family friend has revealed.
Lord Watson, 56, is said to believe an appeal against the sentence would fail and wants to save his wife Clare from further distress.
Friends and neighbours report her to be close to breakdown as a result of the pressure she has been under since her husband was accused of setting fire to curtains at Prestonfield House Hotel at a party following a political award dinner last November.
And the life peer, who was sentenced to 16 months in prison for the incident, has told friends he will turn his back on Scotland after he is freed and move to London to restart a career in politics in the House of Lords.
A close friend of Lord Watson said that, given the "hard line taken by the sheriff who sentenced Mike", the peer believes he is unlikely to win an appeal.
The friend said: "He feels, after the amount of trauma his wife and close family and friends have had to go through for almost a year, that it would be wrong to put them through even more for an appeal that has little chance of succeeding.
"His parliamentary career in Scotland is over and he has lost his directorship of Dundee United Football Club. The rebuilding of his life is going to happen down south."
Mrs Watson, 31, has moved out of the couple's home in Glasgow, and the friend said she was unlikely to return to it for any length of time.
"She is looking at her future career. She is from the London area and her parents are down there. I think she will move there very shortly, and Mike will join her after his release," the friend said, adding: "He has a massive amount to contribute to British politics and he will go back into the House of Lords and he will make a brilliant contribution."
The friend stressed that Mrs Watson's move to England while her husband is in prison in Scotland did not indicate any rift between the couple.
During Lord Watson's trial, the court heard how Mrs Watson had suffered a miscarriage after conceiving a child through IVF treatment, causing the couple a great deal of distress.
A neighbour of the couple in Glasgow, who asked not to be named, said Mrs Watson was on the verge of a breakdown: "Clare is not bearing up to this well. She's been in a poor state since it all begun and this makes it a lot worse."
Malcolm Brown, a spokesman for the couple, said : "[Lord Watson] is legally entitled to go back into the House of Lords."
Mr Brown, who has known Lord Watson for two years, after he met him while representing Dundee United FC, said he had become a friend of the politician and he understood why he wanted to move to England.
Mr Brown said: "The reaction at the SNP conference, when they cheered with glee when they heard his sentence, sickened me and showed how narrow minded we can be in Scotland.
"He may be better off down south. Mike Watson has admitted his guilt and apologised.
"He's lost his freedom, his role as MSP, his directorship of Dundee United and his salaries - do people really want to see him with absolutely nothing?".
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