How leading the CPS changed Keir Starmer – while he changed it

The lawyer who joined as a socialist firebrand is proud of his record as head of the Crown Prosecution Service - though decisions under his tenure are fodder for opponents

• Starmer was not told about dropping of Savile case, say sources

Keir Starmer was not an obvious choice to lead the Crown Prosecution Service.

As a human rights lawyer, he had no record of prosecuting criminal cases. He was known as a firebrand leftwinger who had defended Greenpeace activists in their libel case against McDonald's for free after they were denied legal aid. In the 1980s, he helped set up the radical leftwing journal Socialist Alternatives.