Ken Macdonald QC on privacy and civil liberties for Intelligence Squared

Ken Macdonald QC

Defence lawyer and former Director of Public Prosecutions; Liberal Democrat peer

Ken Macdonald QC is a former Director of Public Prosecutions (2003-2008) for England and Wales. He was the first leading lawyer to hold the position, and during his tenure he established the Organised Crime Division, the Counter Terrorism Division, the Special Crime Division and the Fraud Prosecution Service. He was called to the bar in 1978, joining the Queen's Counsel in 1997. In 1999 he co-founded Matrix chambers with Cherie Booth and Tim Owen, was appointed a Recorder of the Crown Court in 2001, and became a bencher of the Inner Temple in 2004. He had previously also been elected as Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association of England and Wales.

Macdonald was listed as the fourth most influential lawyer in the UK in the 2008 Times Law 100, and was knighted for his services to law in 2007. In 2009, he became a trustee of Index on Censorship, the leading free expression advocacy group. He is currently a visiting professor of Law at the London School of Economics, and in 2010 was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge and a member of the Advisory Board of the University of Oxford's Centre for Criminology. He was appointed a life peer in July 2010, as Baron Macdonald of River Glaven, of Cley-next-the-Sea.