- Thomas Hetherington
Major Sir Thomas Chalmers Hetherington, KCB, CBE, QC (18 September 1926 -28 March 2007 ), better known as Sir Tony Hetherington, was a Britishbarrister . He wasDirector of Public Prosecutions ofEngland and Wales from 1977 to 1987, and was the first head of theCrown Prosecution Service for the year after it was founded in 1986.Hetherington was born in
Dumfriesshire ,Scotland . His father was a doctor. After being educated atRugby School , he served for three years in theRoyal Artillery in theMiddle East . He continued to serve in theTerritorial Army until 1967, rising to the rank ofmajor . He read law atChrist Church, Oxford , graduating in 1951, and wascalled to the Bar in 1952 at theInner Temple . He joined thegovernment legal service , in the legal department of theMinistry of Pensions and National Insurance .He became part of the legal team supporting the
Attorney-General and the Solicitor General in 1962. He was head of the permanent legal staff of the Law Officers from 1966 to 1976. He was appointedCBE in 1970, and became DeputyTreasury Solicitor in 1975.The
Home Secretary Merlyn Rees appointed him Director of Public Prosecutions on the retirement of SirNorman Skelhorn in 1977, with a brief to reduce delays in the criminal legal system. Soon after taking office, he took the decision to prosecuteJeremy Thorpe , who was acquitted of plotting the murder of his former homosexual lover. Hetherington became aQC and abencher of Inner Temple in 1978, and he was appointed KCB in 1979.The later years of his service were dominated by wide-ranging changes to the criminal legal system in the UK. A perceived
miscarriage of justice after the murder of male prostituteMaxwell Confait , and a subsequent critical report by the retiredHigh Court judge SirHenry Fisher in 1977, led to aRoyal Commission on Criminal Procedure chaired by SirCyril Philips , which reported in 1981. The Royal Commission recommended changes to the investigation and prosecution of criminal offences, and that the decision to prosecute should be taken out of the hands of thepolice and given to an independent body in charge of Crown prosecutions. The government accepted the report. After consultation, thePolice and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) was enacted to formalise the existingJudges Rules , and the Crown Prosecution Service was created in 1986 under the terms of theProsecution of Offences Act 1985 , with Hetherington as its first head until he retired in 1987.In 1989, shortly after his retirement, he co-wrote the Hetherington-Chalmers Report with former Scottish
Crown agent William Chalmers, which examined ways to prosecute suspectedwar criminal s living in Britain for "crimes of murder, manslaughter or genocide committed in Germany and in territories occupied by German forces during theSecond World War ," over which British courts did not then have jurisdiction. The report followed a 15-month inquiry in which allegations against 301 suspects were investigated. The report's recommendations led two years later to theWar Crimes Act 1991 , which was passed over objections of theHouse of Lords using theParliament Acts .He suffered from a degenerative neurological illness in later life. He was survived by his wife, the former June Catliff, whom he married in 1953, and their four daughters.
References
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1588675.ece Obituary] , "
The Times ",30 March 2007
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=ZAJYD2Z3NMPWTQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/03/30/db3001.xml Obituary] , "The Daily Telegraph ",30 March 2007
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2047828,00.html Obituary] , "The Guardian ",2 April 2007
* [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2426199.ece Obituary] , "The Independent ",6 April 2007 ]
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