Calvert-Smith to quit CPS after five-year tenure

The Director of Public Prosecutions will step down in October at the end of his five-year tenure, it has emerged.

Sir David Calvert-Smith QC took over at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in 1998.

He was knighted last year.

Sir David, who is 57, said he hoped he had helped push forward the vision of a joined-up criminal justice system, and that he was leaving the CPS in a good state of health.

He said: 'I hope that the values that the organisation has now signed up to and the progress it is making at the moment with issues such as charging, on victims and witnesses, on diversity and equality, on greater involvement in the Crown Court, are sufficiently well embedded for the organisation not to falter just because the head of the organisation has changed.

I feel that things are set enough on the right path and that I can leave the organisation in safe hands.'

There will be an external recruitment process to replace him.

Paula Rohan