New year honours: Former chief prosecutor Alison Saunders given damehood despite rape scandals

The decision to grant a controversial former director of public prosecutions a damehood has been labelled “appalling”.

Alison Saunders, a barrister who headed up the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2013 until 2018, saw her tenure plagued with controversy.

She presided over scandals on collapsed rape cases, evidence disclosure, budget cuts, and management of sexual abuse allegations.

Dame Alison Saunders oversaw the infamous disclosure scandal, in which dozens of rape trials collapsed due to the late disclosure of evidence, leading to a review of every rape case in the UK.

Dame Alison also attracted criticism for the handling of other sex crime allegations and investigations – including claims made against the late Lord Janner and broadcaster Paul Gambaccini, who was paid a settlement over his wrongful arrest as part of Operation Yewtree.

Dame Alison was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath for services to criminal justice in spite of choosing to quit the position in October last year.

In a break with typical custom, she did not receive an honour after departing her role.

Her award was believed to have been withheld after then prime minister Theresa May demanded an end to automatic honours for civil servants accused of failing in their roles.

Criminal QC Daniel Janner, son of the late Labour peer Lord Janner who faced child abuse allegations, branded Dame Alison “the worst DPP in living memory” as he described her damehood as “appalling”.

“She completely made a hash of my innocent late father’s ridiculous allegations,” he told the PA news agency. “These have now proved to be false like the allegation that ‘Nick’ made, and she presumed guilt and introduced, followed or continued a policy of all victims are to be automatically believed.”

He added: “As a result of this policy, it led to huge injustices against many well-known people and not so well-known people – people like my late father, Paul Gambaccini, Harvey Proctor and Lord Brittan, and many, many others.

“This is an appalling honour which brings the honours system into disrepute.”

Dame Alison defended her damehood, telling The Times it was for “30 years of public service” and that it was unfair to describe it as reward for failure.

A parliamentary report released in July last year came to the conclusion her weak leadership did not deal with failings in how evidence is distributed – causing innocent individuals to be erroneously jailed.

The decision to grant Iain Duncan Smith with a knighthood in the new year honours list has also sparked a backlash.

The former Conservative Party leader, who was the secretary of state for work and pensions from 2010 to 2016, has been charged with driving thousands into poverty and destitution via his welfare reforms.

Additional reporting by Press Association