Director of Public Prosecutions (England and Wales)
Director of Public Prosecutions | |
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Crown Prosecution Service | |
Style | Director |
Type | Director of Public Prosecutions |
Reports to | Attorney General for England and Wales |
Appointer | The Attorney General on the recommendation of independent panels |
Constituting instrument | Prosecution of Offences Act 1879 |
Formation | 3 July 1879 |
First holder | John Maule |
Website | cps.gov.uk |
This article is part of the series: Courts of England and Wales |
Law of England and Wales |
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The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the head of the
.First created in 1879, the office was merged with that of the
The director reports to the attorney general, who answers for the CPS in Parliament and makes appointments to the position, in the case of vacancy, on the recommendation of panels that include the Civil Service Commission. As of November 2023, the director is Stephen Parkinson.[2][3]
History
A Director of Public Prosecutions was first recommended by the Criminal Law Commission in 1845, who said that:
the duty of prosecution is usually irksome, inconvenient and burthensome; the injured party would often rather forgo the prosecution than incur expense of time, labour and money. When, therefore, the party injured is compelled by the magistrate to act as prosecutor, the duty is frequently performed unwillingly and carelessly.
The
The first appointee was Sir John Maule QC, who took up his post in 1880. Maule was a quiet, reserved and cautious man, who interpreted his powers in an unnecessarily restrictive way, feeling that he could do little more than send cases to the Treasury Solicitor's office, and that it was not the job of the DPP to prosecute cases. He came under harsh criticism, which reached a head in 1883 when he refused to authorise prosecution of a pair of blackmailers, who were instead prosecuted privately, convicted and given heavy sentences. As a result of the fallout, the Home Secretary William Harcourt set up a committee into "the present action and position of the Director of Public Prosecutions".[5]
The Committee concluded that the DPP's job, in which he took no practical part in prosecutions, would be best unified into the job of the Treasury Solicitor. This was accepted, and the DPP "vanished in all but name".[
The organisation remained rooted in its Victorian origins, still operating under the 1886 Prosecutions of Offences Regulations, until the appointment of
In 2011, the DPP was given veto power over arrest warrants following a 2009 warrant for the arrest of Tzipi Livni issued by Westminster Magistrates' Court, related to her time as foreign minister of Israel during which it was alleged that war crimes had been committed.[12]
List of directors
- John Maule (1880–1884)
- Augustus Stephenson (1884–1894; also Treasury Solicitor)
- Hamilton Cuffe, 5th Earl of Desart (1894–1908; also Treasury Solicitor)
- Charles Willie Matthews(1908–1920)
- Archibald Bodkin (1920–1930)
- Edward Tindal Atkinson (1930–1944)
- Theobald Mathew(1944–1964)
- Norman Skelhorn (1964–1977)
- Thomas Hetherington (1977–1987; first head of CPS)
- Allan Green (1987–1992)
- Barbara Mills (1992–1998)
- David Calvert-Smith (1998–2003)
- Ken Macdonald (2003–2008)
- Keir Starmer (2008–2013)
- Alison Saunders (2013–2018)
- Max Hill (2018–2023)
- Stephen Parkinson (2023–present)
References
- ^ Hansard, 23 March 1888
- ^ "New Director of Public Prosecutions announced". gov.uk. Government of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
- ^ "About CPS". Crown Prosecution Service. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
- ^ Rozenberg (1987) p.17
- ^ Rozenberg (1987) p.19
- ^ Rozenberg (1987) p.20
- ^ Rozenberg (1987) p.22
- ^ Rozenberg (1987) p.26
- ^ Rozenberg (1987) p.27
- ^ Rozenberg (1987) p.30
- ^ Rozenberg (1987) p.89
- ^ Quinn, Ben (3 October 2011). "Former Israeli minister Tzipi Livni to visit UK after change in arrest law". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 11 December 2014. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
Bibliography
- Rozenberg, Joshua (1987). The Case for the Crown: the Inside Story of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Equation Publishing. ISBN 1-85336-011-2.