Glasgow Cathcart by-election 2005
 | 'He denies suggestions he was resentful that fellow Labour MSP Margaret Curran was picking up an award, claiming she was a friend and deserved it.'
Annie Brown in the Daily Record, 24 th May 2006 |  |
I'm sorry says Lord Watson
By Annie Brown in the Daily Record 24 th May 2006
DISGRACED peer Mike Watson left jail yesterday and admitted: "I could have killed someone."
He apologised for starting a late-night fire at an Edinburgh hotel.
And in a remarkable interview in today's Record, he speaks for the first time about his moment of madness and his eight months behind bars.
He said: "I feel tremendous remorse for the potential loss of life that could have been caused."
DISGRACED peer Mike Watson last night admitted he could have killed someone by setting fire to the curtains of a hotel.
The former politician - looking tired and drawn - shook his head as he contemplated the potential consequences of his actions.
He said: "I feel tremendous remorse for the potential loss of life that could have been caused.
"Not just the fact that someone could have burned to death but also had a heart attack. It wasn't just bad, it was potentially catastrophic."
Watson was jailed for 16 months for the wilful fire-raising at a political awards bash at Prestonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh in November 2004.
Yesterday Watson, 57, walked free from the city's Saughton Prison after serving eight months. He fell in to the arms of his wife Clare, 32, who had stood by him as his life disintegrated.
The former Labour MSP and Glasgow Central MP said his first task was to say sorry and try to pick up the pieces of his life. He said: "I apologise to the hotel and everyone who was in that building and that I put them in danger because of what I did.
"To this day, I will never know why I did it and I will live with it for the rest of my days."
Watson was suffering from stress in the lead-up to the incident. He had been drinking daily and his wife Clare had lost a baby in July 2004 after four years of IVF.
The couple had been together for seven years and married for two.
Yesterday, he said: "I was doing a job I loved and I was in a marriage that I was happy in. But in politics you do end up drinking more than you realise.
"Most people have probably never seen me the worse for wear but I was drinking every day. Even if it was just a couple of glasses of wine, it was a rare day if I didn't drink at least something."
He had never wanted to have children before meeting Clare but had decided he wanted to start a family with her.
When she lost the baby after five attempts at IVF, he was shattered.
He said: "It looked like it was something that was going to happen and when it didn't, it was sad and it put a cloud over us to some extent.
"I was over 50 and I very much thought that because of my age our last chance had gone. Maybe, more than I realised, I was seeking comfort in alcohol."
But he added: "I am in no way looking for a sympathy vote. All I am saying is I was subconsciously more stressed than I realised."
Watson claims he was not an alcoholic and said: "I was in prison for eight months and didn't have a drink, had no withdrawal and had no urge to have alcohol."
Talking about the night of the fire-raising, he said: "Drink was flowing and the line was crossed with drink somewherein that evening that wasn't the norm for me."
He said the day had begun like any other and the event had been just another date in his diary.
He denies suggestions he was resentful that fellow Labour MSP Margaret Curran was picking up an award, claiming she was a friend and deserved it.
He had already come to terms with limited career as a back-bencher, having lost a post in the cabinet as minister for sport and tourism, and was planning to quit the Scottish parliament in 2007.
The awards evening had started with a couple of glasses of wine, and alcohol was "on tap" throughout dinner.
By midnight, witnesses said they saw Watson haranguing waitresses who refused to give him more wine. Watson believes he drank a couple of bottles of white wine over the evening but no spirits.
He said: "I remember being given the wine. I don't remember there being any major fuss. It is not the case that I was trying to get my own back.''
His great regret is agreeing to go to an after-awards party in the hotel for 100 invited guests.
It was a step too far and, he said, it was then that the evening became a haze.
"If I had just decided to go home, I would never have been in this position.
"I am old enough and wise enough to know it is dangerous to have so much drink on tap and, in the past, I would have taken notice of that.
"But for some reason that night, I didn't know when to turn the tap off."
He claims that he woke up the day after the awards with a terrible hangover but no recollection of what had happened. Then the Press contacted him to say there were pictures from security cameras showing him setting fire to a pair of curtains.
CCTV footage showed the kilted Watson walk in to a small reception area and use a lamp like a torch to inspect the curtains.
He lingered for several minutes before putting matches in his sporran and leaving.
On the video, he could be seen coming back in to check the smouldering curtain and leaving.
Flames are then seen crawling up the curtain and licking the ceiling.
Staff who later threw him out of the hotel put the flames out with fire extinguishers but damage of £4000 had already been caused.
He said even after he had seen grainy still pictures and a DVD of the incident, he still could not believe it was him.
He said: "I know it looked like me but I could remember nothing about it.
"I just thought it couldn't be me because why would I do that? There was no rationale."
He was charged a few days after the event and until the following summer continued to protest his innocence.
But after seeing an enhanced video of the incident, he was forced to face up to the fact that it was him.
Measurements were taken from the video to establish everything from the height of the culprit to his shoe size.
Watson said: "I was forced to the conclusion it was me. I felt remorse for what had happened and the potential loss of life. I had been in denial but I realised then it could have been a charge of culpable homicide I was facing.
"I did want to plead guilty because I wanted to face up to it and say that I accept I put lives at risk.
"That moment cast me in to darkness. My life was in ruins at that point."
He changed his plea to guilty and resigned from politics and the board of Dundee United Football Club, saying: "I knew my position was untenable."
Watson had been married less than a year and knew the impact it would have on Clare and his family.
He said "I had accepted that prison was inevitable but politics was over, Dundee United was over, it was gloomy. There was no redeeming factor.
"From a height of joy in February 2004 when I married Clare, here I was cast down to the opposite extremity. But now, even one and a half years after the event, I still can't tell you what happened or why it happened."
Watson wanted it to be made clear that neither he nor anyone connected to him received any money for his story.
He said: "So many things have been said and written about me since September and I have not been in a position to set the record straight.
"The time to do that is now.
"I chose the Daily Record because it is the biggest-selling paper in Scotland and is read by more people."
I am in no way looking for a sympathy vote. All I am saying is I was subconsciously more stressed than I realised. Drink was flowing and the line was crossed.'
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