Addison makes exit from CPS

Neil Addison, the Bar Council member and Crown Prosecutor who was controversially suspended last November after writing newspaper articles without his employer's consent, has left the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) with a settlement in hand.

But issues raised by the suspension continue to worry barristers and a call to terminate the Director of Public Prosecution's ex officio Bar Council post will still be made as planned later this month.

A statement by the CPS says that, following talks between Addison's lawyers Penningtons and those representing the CPS, he left on 31 December and intends to return to private practice at the Bar.

It says: "The CPS and Mr Addison have agreed terms for this on an amicable basis. Both parties have agreed to make no further public comment."

Addison says: "In the end I tried to make a decision that would be best for me and my family. I couldn't spend the next two years fighting a Government department."

Instead he will practice as a barrister from home in Newcastle. Under Bar rules, he will be able to continue representing the employed Bar as a Bar Council member.

Peter Goldsmith QC, the Bar Council's new chairman, says: "There is a principle which needs to be considered further with the DPP. There is obviously a conflict of interest between the duties of the civil service and the position of an elected member of the Bar Council operating with independence of thought and action."

Meanwhile Bar Council member Bob Sheddon will still call for the DPP's post to be abolished because the DPP is the employer of other council members.