[1] Upon his return from Oxford, he joined the Department of Justice in October 1982;[3] his first job was as a prosecutor in the Magistrate's Court in Kuils River outside Cape Town.
He returned to the Department of Justice as a prosecutor at the Wynberg Magistrate's Court, and in 1986 he was recruited into the office of Neil Rossouw, the Attorney-General for the Cape Province.
[1] He continued to work as a state advocate in a similar capacity after the attorney-general's office was merged into the post-apartheid National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
[citation needed] Downer is best known to the public for his role in prosecuting former President Jacob Zuma on fraud and corruption charges related to the 1999 Arms Deal.
[10][11] Zuma objected to Downer’s involvement in his case and claimed that the retired prosecutor acted unlawfully by leaking information to the media.