Career
He was Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales and second head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 1987 to 1992. He was called to the bar in 1959 and rose to become a recorder (part-time judge) in 1979. After a successful career as a prosecution counsel, he was appointed Director of Public Prosecutions in 1987.
In this role he was responsible for the majority of criminal prosecutions in England, and in his term of office he had to deal with the appeals against conviction of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six.
He resigned in October 1991 when he was allegedly spotted kerb-crawling in Kings Cross, London. Between 2000 and 2004 he represented 10 British soldiers in the inquiry into the Bloody Sunday massacre (when 27 people were shot, 14 fatally, by British troops in Northern Ireland in 1972).
In answer to a question in Parliament in 2005 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said that Sir Allan had been paid £1.5 million for his work on the inquiry.