DPP: no need to detain suspects for 42 days

Britain's most senior prosecutor last night questioned whether the government's controversial proposal to detain terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge was even directed at "a real problem".

Sir Ken Macdonald, the director of public prosecutions, last night renewed his opposition to the proposal, telling MPs that he had "managed quite comfortably" within the current 28-day limit. He revealed that no suspect had actually been held longer than 14 days in the last 9 months.

The DPP's firm stand, five months after he first raised his concerns about the issue of 42 days and despite an intense campaign by the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, is bound to fuel a rebellion that already threatens Gordon Brown's position. He was backed by the former attorney-general, Lord Goldsmith, who was scathing about the proposed parliamentary "safeguards" and warned that they would be seen as another attack on the Muslim community.

The DPP told MPs yesterday: "For our part as prosecutors, we don't perceive any need for the period of 28 days to be increased. Our experience has been that we have managed comfortably within 28 days. We have therefore not asked for an increase in 28 days. It is possible to set up all sort of hypotheses ... Anything is possible - the question is whether it's remotely likely."

Macdonald added that it was "a question for parliament whether this is directed against a real problem or not."

He dismissed a new plea for the extension from the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, saying that prosecutors were "better placed" than the police to judge whether or not there was sufficient evidence to charge a suspect.

Sue Hemming, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service's counter-terrorism division, said the need to hold terror suspects for longer than 14 days had only been necessary on three occasions since the 28-day limit was introduced in 2005. She added that nobody had been held for longer than 14 days since the attacks on London and Glasgow nine months ago.

Macdonald made it clear that if parliament passed the legislation he would operate it and confirmed the government's view that it did not breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Commons committee examining the counter-terror bill in detail also heard Goldsmith's attack on the proposed parliamentary scrutiny of the home secretary as "not a great deal of safeguard". Goldsmith, who left the government less than a year ago, said: "Are you going to ask parliament to simply trust the secretary of state? The case has not been made out for that extension and I can't personally support it.

"It is also counter-productive, because it sends a message to particularly the Muslim communities that we are down on them, and misguided young men might take it as justification for taking up arms, as they see it, against us."

"We have had and the police have had, significant plots to investigate," said Goldsmith. "But in none of those cases, and I looked hard at them when I was in government, would it have been of help to have a period of longer than 28 days."

The Met commissioner, however, insisted the police were "pushing at" the limit on holding terror suspects without charge and said that there had been 15 foiled plots since the July 7 bombings. "Sooner or later, and maybe sooner, something is going to happen to make that insufficient," he warned.

Two more Labour MPs who backed 90 days in Tony Blair's 2005 Commons defeat - Mohammad Sarwar and Mark Todd - came out in opposition to the 42 days yesterday. A leaked memo at the weekend suggested Labour whips feared earlier this year that at least 50 government MPs would back a revolt. The home secretary has held one-to-one meetings with backbenchers all year in an attempt to curb the rebellion. The vote is expected in June.