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10 June 2020 / Richard Scorer
Issue: 7890 / Categories: Features , Profession
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Book review: The Prosecutor: One man’s pursuit of justice for the voiceless

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"This book is an inspiring account of the career of an outstanding public servant. More accessible than many legal memoirs, I hope it will be widely read"

Author: Nazir Afzal
Publisher: Ebury Publishing 
ISBN/ISSN: 9781529105018
Price: £16.99

Nazir Afzal served as Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West and in that capacity became nationally famous for his work in prosecuting street grooming gangs. This autobiography spans his childhood influences and 25-year career in the CPS and covers some of the most significant legal cases of the period.

Afzal joined the CPS in 1990 after abandoning a career as a criminal defence solicitor. At the time this was an inauspicious career move: in the same year I started a law course and I remember a lecturer dismissing the CPS as the ‘graveyard of all ambition’. Yet over 25 years, Afzal was involved in some of the most high profile and important prosecutions in legal history. His approach throughout was characterised by a willingness to challenge received wisdom and reject ‘hoary shibboleths’, and prosecute crimes

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