Mills, Barbara Jean Lyon (1940– )

English lawyer. She was director of the Serious Fraud Office 1990–92, and in 1992 became the first woman to head the Department of Public Prosecutions; at the time its activities were under scrutiny following damaging revelations of earlier miscarriages of justice.

While junior treasury counsel to the Central Criminal Court in the 1980s, she became known for prosecuting Michael Fagin for breaking into the bedroom of Queen Elizabeth II.

Mills was born in Chorley Wood, Hertfordshire, and educated at St Helen's School, Northwood, and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She was called to the Bar in 1963, and became a recorder of the Crown Court in 1982, and a QC (Queen's Counsel) in 1986.