Two men wrongly prosecuted of rape have pleaded for the outgoing CPS chief to be denied an honour, after she oversaw “catastrophic failures” which destroyed their lives.

Alison Saunders, who will step down as Director of Public Prosecutions at the end of the month, has been heavily criticised during her tenure which saw several rape cases collapse as a result of the prosecution failing to disclose evidence.

Despite the controversy, Ms Saunders is expected to receive a damehood in the New Year's honours list for her work as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), following an automatic honour principle that has applied to many of her predecessors.

However in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, victims of the disclose failure, Liam Allan, 23, and Samuel Armstrong, 25, insist that Ms Saunders should not receive the honour after numerous people “suffered enormous harm” from what they believe was a “convictions at any cost culture”.

They said: “We were wronged by a justice system that was supposed to protect us.

“In the botched processes that followed, many of us lost jobs, homes and relationships. It appears to us that many of the issues raised have still not been properly resolved.

“Such devastating failures cannot be allowed to ever happen again. That’s why - as victims - we say that the exception must be made to the ‘automatic gong principle’ for Alison Saunders.”