As Director of Public Prosecutions for 11 years from 1977, Sir Thomas “Tony” Hetherington occupied the post for an unusually long period. It was a time of intense change in the field of criminal justice. Most notably, it fell to Hetherington to oversee the establishment of the Crown Prosecution Service in 1986 and to head it in its first difficult year.

Thomas Chalmers Hetherington was born in 1926 in Dumfriesshire, the son of a doctor. His education at Rugby was followed by three years in the Royal Artillery, seeing service in the Middle East (and nearly 20 years in the Territorial Army, in which he held the rank of major). He graduated in law from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1951 and was called to the Bar the following year. Soon afterwards he joined the legal department of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance.

In 1962 Hetherington joined the small group of lawyers providing support to the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General (the Law Officers). The roles of the Law Officers are diverse and include the provision of legal advice to the government, often on matters of great difficulty and urgency. Among their discrete statutory roles is the ministerial superintendence of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Law Officers become directly involved in some prosecutions of particular public importance. Their work-load is such that they, in turn, depend heavily on their staff for rapid but reliable preparatory work and advice. Only those regarded as particularly able among the lawyers in the Government Legal Service are selected for a stint with the Law Officers.

For ten years from 1966 Hetherington headed the Law Officers’ permanent staff, a role to which he was ideally suited. In his initial period there he had acquired wide knowledge of the Westminster and White-hall machines, their personnel and the problems thrown up.

Sir Geoffrey (later Lord) Howe, the Solicitor-General appointed by Edward Heath in 1970, described him as “a most effective, engaging and good-humoured head of the department, managing the huge and diverse mountain of work superbly”. Peter (later Lord) Archer, the Solicitor-General during the 1974-79 Labour Government, considered Hetherington’s running of the department to be “meticulous, with so light a touch that you hardly noticed”.

Throughout Hetherington’s career, in posts of increasing seniority, this light touch was a notable characteristic, coupled with personal warmth, concern for the welfare of his colleagues and their families, impish good humour and a total lack of pomposity.

In 1975 Hetherington was appointed Deputy Treasury Solicitor. Within two years the retirement of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Norman Skelhorn, was announced. The Home Secretary, Merlyn (later Lord) Rees, had responsibility for making a fresh appointment. Among those keen to see Hetherington appointed were the Law Officers Sam (later Lord) Silkin and Peter Archer. On their arrival in office in 1974 he had provided invaluable help through the steep learning curve. Hetherington accepted Rees’s offer of the post after considering the nominally more senior, though much less visible, post of Treasury Solicitor.

Most DPPs come from the senior ranks of the practising criminal bar. But prompt action was needed to reduce delays occurring in cases which, by statute and regulation, had to be referred to the director’s office. Hetherington’s governmental experience fitted him for the organisational changes that were needed. He secured immediate ministerial approval for revised prosecution of offences regulations, increasing the proportion of cases that could be left in the hands of local prosecutors. He reduced the bottlenecks in the department by inviting the Home Secretary to appoint several more assistant DPPs — the level at which most prosecution decisions were made.

Hetherington was concerned that the work of his department and the criteria for prosecution decisions were widely misunderstood. The ritualistic “no comment” extended even to refusing to acknowledge that a matter had been reported to the department. Hetherington ushered in a more media-friend-ly approach. His senior colleagues resisted, but journalists were disarmed by his open and unpretentious style. He went so far as to allow the BBC full access to the department to make a Panorama programme.

Soon after Hetherington took up his post, a Royal Commission on criminal procedure was established, prompted by widespread concern over the investigation and prosecution of crime. A specific trigger was an apparent miscarriage of justice in relation to the homopho-bic London murder of Maxwell Confait, leading to a critical report in 1977 by the retired High Court judge Sir Henry Fisher. In its 1981 report the Royal Commission made far-reaching recommendations that were to form the backdrop to Hetherington’s remaining tenure of office. Hitherto, prosecution decisions were made by police officers when the DPP was not involved. The commission identified a conflict between the dual roles of investigator and prosecutor. It recommended that prosecution decisions should rest with independent, legally qualified Crown prosecutors. The Government concurred.

An interdepartmental working party, of which Hetherington was a member, felt that a nationally administered service would achieve greater consistency than the locally based one favoured by the Royal Commission. The White Paper, An Independent Prosecution Service for England and Wales, was published in October 1983. The outcome was a national Crown Prosecution Service staffed by civil servants, with the overwhelming bulk of the casework and administration carried out in local area offices headed by chief Crown prosecutors. There was initial resistance from some local authorities, police authorities, prosecuting solicitors in their employ and police officers. Hetherington had abandoned the rather aloof approach of his predecessors and established warm relationships with prosecuting solicitors at the local level. This paid dividends as the introduction of the new service approached, since many of the staff were to be transferred from local prosecuting solicitors’ offices.

The enabling legislation, the Prosecution of Offences Act, having been enacted in 1985, ministers decided to introduce the CPS the following year. It was an extremely challenging timetable. The early years were dogged by staff and funding shortages. The greatest difficulties were in areas where most prosecutions had hitherto been in the hands of police officers rather than prosecuting solicitors. The problems were especially acute in London — inevitably a shop window for the new service. Nevertheless, Hetherington was justly proud of what he and his committed but overstretched staff had achieved.

The Royal Commission had recommended other sweeping changes in the investigation and prosecution of crime — for example, tight time limits, the tape-recording of interviews with suspects and wide-ranging changes in the admissibility of evidence. The resulting Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, largely taking effect just as the new service got under way, exacerbated the teething problems and emphasised the size of the achievement over which Hetherington had presided.

Hetherington had to ensure that the handling of the frequently very challenging casework entrusted to his department did not suffer during the years when so much effort was diverted towards the introduction of the CPS. Some cases were of such difficulty and importance that he personally had to make crucial decisions.

For example, soon after he took office he decided to prosecute Jeremy Thorpe, the former Liberal Party leader, for allegedly plotting to kill a former homosexual lover. The Attorney-General, Sam Silkin, would normally have been consulted, but felt that the parliamentary alliance between the Labour Government and the Liberal Party might be seen as affecting his impartiality. In the event Thorpe was acquitted.

A series of disturbing terrorist and espionage cases required Hetherington’s attention. It was, too, a period when the director had to keep an eye on serious allegations of corruption in the police service.

Shortly after his retirement in 1988, Hetherington and his former Scottish counterpart, William Chalmers, were appointed to inquire into the feasibility of prosecuting persons then resident in the UK for war crimes committed in German-occupied territories during the Second World War. They reported that there were only a few cases where detailed police investigations were justified. In 1991 the War Crimes Act was passed, not without opposition from some of the Thatcher Cabinet and from Parliament. Rare use was made of the Parliament Act 1911 to overcome objections in the House of Lords. All the potential defendants were old and many were infirm. It proved practicable to bring just two prosecutions. One led to a conviction. The other defendant was unfit to stand trial.

In his later years Hetherington suffered from a degenerative neurological illness. He is survived by his wife, June, whom he married in 1953, and by their four daughters.

Sir Thomas Hetherington, KCB, CBE, Director of Public Prosecutions, 1977-87, was born on September 18, 1926. He died on March 28, 2007, aged 80