Veteran prosecutor Paula Llewellyn was yesterday appointed the new director of public prosecutions (DPP), making her the first female to hold that office in the country’s history.

Llewellyn, who replaced Kent Pantry, QC, who retired on February 13 after 10 years in the job, yesterday told the Observer outside her King Street office in downtown Kingston that she was humbled by the appointment, while paying homage to her late mother.

“Having received the news this evening, I am really humbled by the opportunity to serve in the capacity of director of public prosecutions,” Llewellyn told the Observer.

“My mother was my rock. she prayed for me every day. My mother always told me that humility is the key. Any challenge I had she always helped to show me that one has to have the courage to face it . [and] to stay positive,” the chief prosecutor said of her mother Mavis Llewellyn, a former nurse who passed away two years ago.

Llewellyn, though declining to give details of her plans for the department, said that the DPP’s goals will be to implement changes which will help to offer the “best possible prosecutorial services in the public interest and to achieve world-class and first-class standards”.

Said Llewellyn: “All I would say at the moment is that I will be leading a team and I will be depending on my fellow team members in respect of implementing changes which will help to strengthen managerial best practices. And, of course, we [will] do all we can in terms of elevating the human resource potential as a valuable asset of the office to make sure that we give the best possible prosecutorial services in the public’s interest.”

Llewellyn, along with three other women – Senior Deputy DPP Lisa Palmer, Resident Magistrate Marlene Malahoo-Forte and Vinette Graham Allen, a former prosecutor in the office of the DPP in Jamaica and former DPP in Bermuda – were interviewed for the post by the Public Service Commission.

Two men – former Deputy DPP Hugh Wildman, who is now legal adviser to the Grenadian Government, and Terrence Williams, a former prosecutor in the Office of the DPP in Jamaica, who is now DPP in the British Virgin Islands – who applied for the post were not interviewed for the job.

Llewellyn, a past student of the all girls St Hugh’s High School in Kingston, started her life as a prosecutor at the post of clerk in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate’s Court in 1984 while fresh out of the Norman Manley Law School.

She was promoted two years later to the office of the DPP as a Crown Counsel by the then DPP, Glen Andrade, QC. Seven years later, she was appointed deputy DPP after which she was promoted to senior deputy DPP.

Llewellyn, who has one child, has made a name for herself by prosecuting high-profile and controversial cases such as the Braeton Seven Killings; the Crawle Killings; and the Flankers Killings; the Sonia Jones case; the Caldon Financing fraud case involving Nicole Fullerton; the prosecution of Lester Lloyd Coke, otherwise called Jim Brown; Donald ‘Zeeks’ Phipps; Joel Andem; and Jamaica’s first criminal case in the 1990s where DNA played prominently.

Asked yesterday if she felt any particular sense of achievement, given the fact that she is now the first female to hold the post of DPP, Llewellyn said ‘no’, while adding “. It will be for some people an event in respect of the fact that . I am a woman. . I have never, as a professional, felt that gender was any real great factor. I believe [that] being a professional and doing your service, according to high standard of ethics, really transcends gender. I try to make sure that once I’m doing my work I do it to the best of my ability, without fear or favour.”

Yesterday, some of Llewellyn’s “team members” inside the office of the DPP welcomed her appointment and praised her professionalism and leadership skills over the years.

“She deserves the appointment. Everybody already knew that she would have been the next DPP,” one Crown Counsel told the Observer after Pantry announced the appointment.