Director of Public Prosecutions (England and Wales)

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the most senior public prosecutor in England and Wales (second only to the Attorney General and Solicitor General). The DPP is the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), with personal responsibility for its 7,000 staff and approximately 800,000 prosecutions undertaken by it every year. The holder of the role is appointed by the Attorney General on the recommendation of a panel that includes the First Civil Service Commissioner.

First created in 1879, the office was merged with that of the Treasury Solicitor five years later, before again becoming independent in 1908. The Director's department and role underwent modernisation from 1944 to 1964 under Sir Theobald Mathew QC, and further expansion with the introduction of the CPS in 1985, which came under the control of the Director. The Director is superintended by the Attorney General, who answers for the CPS in Parliament. The current director is Alison Saunders, who took office on 1 November 2013.

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 County and Borough Police Act 1856 allowed the Home Office to ask the Treasury Solicitor's Department to take on cases of particular importance, but this left many cases falling through the net. As a result, the Prosecution of Offences Act 1879 was passed, which created a Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to advise the police and personally act in cases of importance; an elaboration on the 1856 Act.

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".

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