MI5 head spends last day in role

Dame Eliza is only the second woman to head MI5.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller is spending her last day as head of MI5, after 33 years in the security service.

Dame Eliza, 58, will be replaced on Sunday by Jonathan Evans, who is currently her deputy.

She has been director-general for four and a half years, and announced her retirement in December.

Announcing her departure, she said that MI5 was facing two big challenges - the "serious threat" and the need to adapt to that threat.

The move was planned, she said, early in 2005 - before the 7 July bombings on London's transport network.

Dame Eliza is the second woman to head the service. The other female director-general was Dame Stella Rimington.

The main focus of her work in the service before becoming director-general had been on counter-terrorism, both international and domestic.

She led the section responsible for the investigation into the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie in 1988.

Mr Evans has been in the security service since 1980, specialising in counter-terrorism.

As head of MI5, Mr Evans will be responsible for a staff of around 2,800 people.