# Keir Starmer takes office as Director of Public Prosecutions

Date: 2008

## The fact

On 1 November 2008 Keir Starmer took office as Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales, after appointment by the Attorney General.

## Context

The DPP is a prosecutorial office created by the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. Starmer came from private practice at Doughty Street. He issued guidance, including on assisting-suicide and public-order charging. He did not sit as a jury. He did not write the Bribery Act. Later Savile-file criticism is a neighbouring 2013 instrument. The five-year term ended on 1 November 2013 when Alison Saunders succeeded him.

The 2013 Levitt review of the Savile charging decision is a different date. The 2015 Holborn election is a different date. Do not merge a prosecutorial appointment into a later premiership.

The Director of Public Prosecutions heads the Crown Prosecution Service. He decides charges and issues guidance; he does not sit as a jury, write statutes, or police the streets. A later review of a charging file is not a criminal conviction of the DPP.

## Evidence and sources

Crown Prosecution Service carries the official instrument or communique. The Guardian records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [democratic-resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience): a completed independent prosecutorial appointment is a rule-of-law staffing event. It does not convert every later CPS decision into personal authorship of a conviction.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Starmer took office as DPP on 1 November 2008 for a five-year term.

Not established: that the appointment itself moved a crime-rate series, or that every later CPS charging decision was his personal draft.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

The Attorney General appointed. CPS lawyers still charged individual files.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Keir Starmer takes office as Director of Public Prosecutions, not a later speech about Keir Starmer takes office as Director of Public Prosecutions.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Keir Starmer takes office as Director of Public Prosecutions on 2008-11-01 is not a licence to treat every later Crown Prosecution Service communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Keir Starmer takes office as Director of Public Prosecutions into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He accepted and occupied the DPP office. The Attorney General appointed. CPS lawyers still charged individual files. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Keir Starmer: https://factrail.ai/people/mig-keir-starmer

## Drivers

- Democratic Resilience: https://factrail.ai/drivers/democratic-resilience

## Sources

- https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jul/25/law.justice1
- https://www.cps.gov.uk/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/uk-starmer-appointed-dpp-2008