Self-sacrifice and determination have marked the career of new Director of Public Prosecutions Vinette Graham-Allen.

So when she says she wants to leave office in three years with a Bermudian taking over and locals filling all the top posts, she should be taken very seriously.

For this is a woman who left her husband behind in Jamaica when she came to Bermuda in October, 2000 and job commitments mean she has not seen him since May of last year.

Happily, she was preparing to be reunited with husband Linton Charles, an inspector in the Jamaican Police service, last night after an absence of 14 months.

?It has been tough, but we are coping,? she told yesterday. ?We talk a lot on the telephone and I have very large telephone bills, let?s put it that way.

?I concentrated my mind and tried to make Bermuda my home and concentrated on what I have to do to the best of my ability.?

Her new office as DPP in the Government Administration Building overlooks Bermuda?s courts, but Mrs. Graham-Allen already has her sights on her long-term career goals.

Her top priority is to move to the Netherlands to prosecute war criminals at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Former dictators such as Slobodan Milosovic, whose barbaric Serb henchmen tried to ?ethnically cleanse? the Balkans of Muslims and Croats during the 1990s, are currently facing trial and many lawyers consider the ICC the top arena in the world for prosecutors.

Since arriving in Bermuda, where she was acting DPP on the crime-ridden Caribbean island of Jamaica, she has taken courses in preparation for a possible job at The Hague.

Her other options are going back to Jamaica to sit as a judge, or to help Caricom in training prosecutors from across the Caribbean.

Mrs. Graham-Allen, 46, was born in St. Thomas, Jamaica, in 1958 and studied public administration at the University of the West Indies, Mona, from 1983-84. She spent 11 years as a deputy clerk of court in Jamaica?s magistrates courts until 1987, during which time she obtained a certificate in public administration at the University of West Indies, Mona, before leaving to study there for a further four years to get her Bachelor of Laws.

From 1990 to 1992 she studied for a certificate in legal education at the Norman Manley Law School where she named most outstanding student in the Legal Aid clinic.

She was a Crown counsel in he tough Caribbean island from 1994 to 1998, sometimes prosecuting three murder trials a week. Her hard work and ability were rewarded in 1998 when she was made assistant DPP, a post she held until moving to Bermuda.

In her spare time, she likes listening to music, cooking and baking. She is a lay counsellor, and is president of Women?s Ministry at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Hamilton.

She is already enjoying settling into the top job and has met her junior staff to spell out to them her plans to train them up so that a Bermudian will succeed her when she leaves.

?They are quite happy. I had a meeting with them today and they are going to throw a party for me tomorrow,? she said.