From the crime-ridden streets of Brixton, London, to the picturesque university city of Durham, new chief crown prosecutor Portia Ragnauth tells Liz Lamb how she hopes to make her mark on the region.

WHEN Portia Ragnauth was a teenager she dreamed of becoming a writer and forging a successful career in journalism.

The job was something she had always wanted to do, but it was only after enrolling on a law degree, spurred on by her parents, who are both barristers, that she was enticed by crime and the legal world.

Dreams of a future in newspapers were soon abandoned, but it is not a decision she regrets.

As Durham's new chief crown prosecutor, Mrs Ragnauth is responsible for making sure criminals are brought to justice and helping to make the community a safer place to live.

She will oversee the work of the County Durham and Darlington crown prosecutors and will answer directly to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

"I don't think I will be calling him up with every little problem though," she laughs.

Despite officially being employed in her new role for only three weeks, the married mother-of-one already has firm plans for changes she will make in her new role.

Having come to the North-East from working in Brixton and Croydon, in London, Mrs Ragnauth knows she faces a different set of challenges to those in the capital.

"I was lucky to be offered Durham," she says. " It was my first choice. I enjoyed my time in London but the director of prosecutions doesn't want to have chiefs staying in the same position. He likes them to move around and bring in new ideas.

"Everyone is very friendly and I am settling in fine. I have met some police colleagues and they are very supportive. I want to be seen working with all the partners, such as the police, and progress to looking at issues in Durham and Darlington.

"Persistent offenders are challenging for all of us, but in the past all the relevant agencies did not necessarily work together. To be able to have successful prosecutions we obviously have to work together.

"We have good relations with Durham Police and I have visited Aykley Heads (Durham Police HQ) but relations can only get better. It is going to be challenging, but I am looking forward to it."

The daughter of two barristers who are still practising today, Mrs Ragnauth took inspiration from her parents and enrolled on a law degree at the University of London before going to bar school.

After gaining her qualifications to become a barrister she started out in defence work before joining the Crown Prosecution Service in 1986.

She says: "Defending was quite difficult. I had to acquire a new set of skills. Some of the people I represented were not nice but you wanted to just tell the truth.

"Prosecuting was something I was more comfortable with. It gave me satisfaction. I have to say I really enjoyed prosecuting.

'WHEN I first started off it was great for a young barrister to be employed by the CPS. It gave you a good grounding to be in court every single day. It was fantastic."

Mrs Ragnauth, who is in her late 30s and has a two-year-old daughter, went on to work as a specialist prosecutor in Brixton, where she oversaw the most serious crime cases in the area including murders, rapes and major drugs prosecutions.

"You learn a lot, you learn humility," she says. " It was really challenging but very interesting. It taught you a lot and gave you an edge. I have seen most of it, the worst crimes."

Her most difficult case was prosecuting two males, aged 17 and 19, who were accused of three murders, armed robbery and six rapes committed across London.

Putting a case together against the pair involved working with three different police forces and collating all the evidence on the individual crimes. The trial lasted four months, but she got the result she was hoping for: guilty.

"There were lots of problems with the case, there was lots of intimidation," she says. "It was cold blooded shooting simply because people happened to get in the way. That was shocking for me but challenging. We got the result we wanted."

After Brixton, she moved to Croydon as district prosecutor and was successful in setting up the area's first specialist domestic violence court.

As part of her work she travelled to New York and spent time visiting specialist courts around the city and looking at case files before bringing back ideas to open a similar centre in London.

"I have been quite appalled at the number of domestic violence cases," she says. "Domestic violence is never talked about. It seems to be accepted, people think it is not a crime.

"I want to change what people think about domestic violence. It is a crime and offenders need to be punished."

In the Durham Constabulary area last year, 9,000 cases of domestic violence were reported to police but many cases often do not reach court because victims are too terrified to give evidence. As chief crown prosecutor Mrs Ragnauth hopes to set up County Durham and Darlington's first domestic violence court and increase the number of convictions.

In her new role, and as a member of the Local Criminal Justice Board, she will also help oversee the area's first major survey into witness care, which has been initiated to discover why so many witnesses fail to come to court.

SHE says: "When I was prosecuting in London one of the things people were concerned with was they were intimidated by the court room.

"We hope at some stage to get victims and witnesses in separate rooms and have an officer who will stay with them through the experience," she says.

"When I was in New York visiting their domestic violence courts, one of the concerns they had was that witnesses would not turn up. They had a new court, spent loads of money but no one turned up.

"What they did was they actually went out and consulted their local community, gave them surveys, and basically the problem boiled down to childcare, they hadnowhere to put their children.

"So they built a new creche in the court room, problem solved. Something so simple.

"With the new survey we are conducting we will find out exactly why victims and witnesses are not coming to court in the Durham and Darlington area, and make moves to address the problems."

Based at the Crown Prosecution Service offices in Durham City, she is hoping she will soon be able to bring ideas from her time in London to help gain more successful prosecutions in the North-East.

"As a chief, I now have responsibility for the whole area and it is a major change," she says. "I really want to get with the challenge in County Durham and Darlington.

"Ultimately, I would like to provide a first class prosecution service that serves the community."