New DPP hits back at 'crony' claim

Britain's top prosecutor today hit back against charges that he is soft on terrorism and a Blair crony.

Ken Macdonald, appointed this month as Director of Public Prosecutions, broke his silence to dismiss attacks from senior lawyers.

A leading QC said: "He is almost certainly a crony. With Ken Macdonald as DPP and Charlie Falconer as Lord Chancellor, the Blairs have taken over the criminal justice system in a big way." But the human rights barrister said he had only met Mr Blair once, "at a party in Clapham or Streatham for five minutes in 1981".

The Tories have focused their attacks on his record of defending terrorist suspects and referring to their crimes as "political violence". But in an interview with The Times he said: "Under my direction, the Crown Prosecution Service will prosecute terrorists with unique vigour. We shall be absolutely relentless."

Mr Macdonald, 50, admitted he had been "foolish" to post cannabis to a friend when he was an undergraduate at Oxford. He said: "I very much regret it and I wish it had not happened. I do not support the legalisation of drugs."

Friends recall him in the late Sixties as a Left-winger with long hair. But he said: "I don't think I was a rebel. I was always interested in politics but it was nothing serious."