Director of Public Prosecutions, the first woman to hold that position. As DPP she also served as the second head of the Crown Prosecution Service, with 6,000 staff considering the prosecution of 1.4 million cases each year. During her term in this office, levels of bureaucracy in the CPS were high and morale was low. She worked to increase the efficiency of the CPS, and introduced victim impact statements. After a report by the West Yorkshire Police into abuses at the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, she agreed that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any of the officers at the squad, a decision for which she was widely criticised. She was criticised when the CPS declined to prosecute suspects for the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. She resigned in 1998 after she was criticised in reports by Gerald Butler and Sir Iain Glidewell for repeatedly refusing to bring prosecutions over deaths in police custody. She also ordered a 75-year embargo restriction on the Devon and Cornwall Police Investigation of failures by West Midlands Police in the Birmingham 6 scandal of 1974. On 1 June 2016 the Coroner re-opened the inquests after a 42-year adjournment a decision opposed by West Midlands Police. She was appointed as Adjudicator for Inland Revenue and for HM Customs and Excise on 26 April 1999, a part-time role independent of those departments, dealing with complaints from members of the public who are not satisfied with how the departments dealt with their complaints. Mills retained the role as Adjudicator for HM Revenue and Customs when those bodies were merged in 2005, and held this post until 2009. Mills also held a number of other public appointments. She was governor of London Guildhall University from 1999 and then its successor London Metropolitan University from 2002 to 2007, and was chair of the council of the Women's Library from 2001 to 2007. She was also a non-executive director of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust from 2000 to 2007. She was the chair of the Professional Oversight Board of the Financial Reporting Council from 2008 until her death. She was a trustee of Victim Support from 1999 to 2004. Personal life Mills married John Mills in July 1962, shortly after they both graduated from Oxford. They had four children, three daughters and one son. Her husband was a businessman and a leading Labour Party councillor in Camden.