If people want a scapegoat over the decision not to prosecute over cash for honours, then David Perry, QC, is an obvious target.

When the Crown Prosecution Service hired Mr Perry to advise it on whether charges should be brought, they brought in a man widely regarded to be at the top of his game — one of the most sought-after criminal silks in the business.

Solicitors and fellow barristers alike praise him highly; and insist that his judgment call on this case, as others, will be impeccable.

“Probably the brightest criminal lawyer at the Bar; the outstanding criminal barriser of his generation, intelligent, thoughtful, realistic,” are some of the plaudits they produce.

From 2001 to 2006 he was Senior Treasury Counsel, prosecuting all the top cases in the fields of crime, extradition, fraud, judicial review — and with some commerecial and civil cases thrown in. He has been in every big criminal appeal in the past five years — including 56 hearings in the House of Lords. As is traditional, he then took silk on leaving that post in 2006. He is also a deputy High Court judge.

A workaholic who is at his papers seven day a week, 14 hours a day, Mr Perry is nonetheless unpompous, affable and popular — generous with his time to help others. “A path is always being beaten to his door,” a colleague said. “And the CPS uses him for everything — they can hardly move on a difficult case without running everything past him.”

On a case like cash for honours, Mr Perry will have looked purely at the legal case and whether it met the test of sufficiency of evidence. “He would not feel under influence or pressure, especially politically,” a fellow QC said. “And his decision would carry the day: the idea that the CPS would disagree with his view is inconceivable.”

His cases have included Blue Arrow, Barlow Clowes, Brent Walker (in all of which he defended); and more recently he prosecuted the Muslim cleric Abu Hamza.

On his appointment to the cash-for-honours inquiry, some questioned whether he had Labour Party affiliations, a charge flatly denied. And they pointed to a case in which he represented the Attorney-General, then Lord Goldsmith, QC, in a case brought by Greenpeace activists in 2004 — and succeeded in preventing the latter forcing the disclosure of the Attorney’s legal advice on the war in Iraq.

But friends say he is non-political: his hobbies are reading and gardening. “He’s extremely well read; interested in everything, good company. But not an outdoor man — he doesn’t do sport.” A Roman Catholic, he went to grammar school in Leicester. He is separated from his Spanish wife and has no children.

In May he was prosecuting counsel in the Official Secrets Act trial of a Cabinet Office official and former researcher charged with making a damaging disclosure of a minute of a meeting between Tony Blair and George Bush.

On the cash-for-honours case, Mr Perry and his team of two juniors have recently worked round the clock on drafting and revisions, with papers passing back and forth between his chambers at 6 King’s Bench Walk and the CPS to ensure that every point is watertight, every conclusion justifiable. One clerk said: “They typed it all out themselves, because of the need for the strictest confidentiality.”

Last week he delivered his advice to Carmen Dowd, head of the CPS special crime division. It fell to her to make the final decision, after the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, stepped aside because he had been in the same chambers as Cherie Booth, QC, the Prime Minister’s wife.

And whatever the political fallout now from the decision, Mr Perry — and the CPS — will simply be satisfied that legally, they have got it right.

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• The best legal yarns this Christmas
• Legal school 'earned £1m by exploiting bar course'
• Axe may fall on 5,000 more City lawyers