Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders insists she was not pressured to stand down after controversial five-year term

Five-year term dogged by scandals over disclosure and prosecution of historical child sex offences

Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders (PA)

The director of public prosecutions (DPP) has insisted she was not pressured to step down by the government following a series of controversies.

Alison Saunders will continue to head the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) until October, after presiding over scandals on collapsed rape cases and false child sexual abuse allegations, and budget and staff cuts.

There were suggestions that the government may have refused to extend her five-year term after news she was stepping down emerged, but she said leaving was her decision.

“I told them that I would not be asking for an extension and that I was leaving at the end of my five years,” said Ms Saunders, who will become a partner in multinational law firm Linklaters.

“It has not been an issue for discussion.”

All DPPs serve five-year terms and only one has been extended, for Dame Barbara Mills immediately before the 1997 general election.

The attorney general, Conservative MP Jeremy Wright QC, praised Ms Saunders for her work as DPP and previously as a CPS prosecutor who jailed Stephen Lawrence’s killers.

“I have no doubt that she’ll be greatly missed within the organisation,” he added. “In recruiting the next DPP we are looking for an extraordinary candidate.”

When Ms Saunders took up her post in 2013, the CPS had almost 7,000 staff and a £586m annual budget, which has since fallen to 6,000 staff and £500m to prosecute 600,000 cases a year amid a huge increase in recorded crime.

Ms Saunders said she was “proud of everything the service has achieved over the past five years” but warned that its work was now more complex because of evolving economic crime, terrorism and rising reports of historical sexual abuse.

“My priority over the next six months is to keep driving improvements in how we work, with a sharp focus on casework quality,” she added. “Key to that will be working alongside the police and other partners to find long-term solutions to the disclosure issues that exist throughout the entire criminal justice system.”

A scandal over the failure by police and prosecutors to disclose some evidence exploded in December after two rape cases collapsed within a week.

Police had downloaded the contents of both complainants’ phones but failed to examine messages that undermined their accounts, which would have prevented prosecution.

Following the collapse of several other cases, the CPS announced a review of all rape and serious sexual assault cases – a move previously announced by the Metropolitan Police and Surrey Police.

Amid warnings over the potential miscarriage of justice, Ms Saunders was heavily criticised for saying she did not believe anyone innocent had been jailed because of the failures.

On Monday, she admitted it was “impossible to give assurances” but that improvements started last July following a damning report by the CPS watchdog that found disclosure issues in more than half of all criminal cases.

“Sometimes prosecutors don’t know what they don’t know and things will come up later, but we work as hard as we can to make sure we get it right and we are seeing that in the majority of cases that is what is happening,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Disclosure is not a recent issue, it has been a systemic failing across all parts of the criminal justice system for some time.

“What we are seeing now is an unprecedented level of commitment by police, by prosecutors, by others across the criminal justice system to really make it work.”

Ms Saunders said the police needed to be “challenged” over their investigations of huge amounts of data from mobile phone downloads, amid huge pressure on resources.

Other scandals during her tenure include the dropping of charges against 12 journalists in the Operation Elveden investigation into alleged payments to public officials and the collapse of a groundbreaking female genital mutilation trial in Bristol.

There was further criticism of the handling of false child sexual abuse allegations against a supposed paedophile ring operating in Westminster by a single witness who was later discredited and prosecuted.

The late Labour peer Lord Janner, who had first been accused of abusing children in the early 1990s, was the subject of separate allegations and the CPS was criticised for declining to charge him because of poor health in 2015 – a decision that was overturned six months before he died.

His son, Daniel Janner QC, branded Ms Saunders an “appalling” DPP under whose leadership the CPS had “fallen into disrepute”.

“Within the criminal profession, she is regarded as somebody who simply isn’t up to the job,” he said.

There was further controversy over comments made by Ms Saunders in January, in which she appeared to suggest that there may be a “reasonable belief” that rape victims had consented “either through silence or through other actions or whatever”.

Ms Saunders said blanket criticisms of the CPS were “incredibly inaccurate” and demonstrated a lack of understanding of its work.

“Our performance across the last five years has been as good as (before) if not improving, despite the cuts that we have taken over that period,” she added.

“We have prosecutors up and down the country who come to work every day who make really important decisions about people’s lives and do so professionally and well. I think it is hugely insulting to them to damn the service in that way.”

She also stressed that the CPS does not name suspects who have not been charged or condone them being identified, following complaints from figures like DJ Paul Gambaccini, who was kept on police bail for a year before being told there was no case against him.

It came as barristers prepared to go on strike over legal aid cuts after warning that Britain’s criminal justice system is “collapsing”.