Derek Lewis (born in 1946) is a former Chief Executive and Director General of the British Prison Service, who was sacked by then Home Secretary Michael Howard after a prison scandal in 1995.[1]
He is most famous, however, for an interview which occurred during the 1997 Conservative Leadership contest in which Jeremy Paxman asked whether Mr Howard had threatened to overrule Lewis. The question was put no fewer than 12 times with Howard failing to give a definitive answer.
A 2005 freedom of information request shed new light on the issue.[2]
Lewis studied at Queens' College, Cambridge between 1964 and 1967.