Dame Goddard’s Resignation Is a Big Blow to Theresa May

By Tom Goodenough
The Spectator
August 5, 2016

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/dame-goddards-resignation-big-blow-theresa-may/


It’s impossible not to see Dame Lowell Goddard’s resignation as an embarrassment to Theresa May. When the Prime Minister was Home Secretary, she personally interviewed and appointed the New Zealand judge to head up the Inquiry into child sex abuse. What’s more, Goddard was rewarded with an almighty pay packet which instantly made her Britain’s highest-earning civil servant. Now, just 18 months on, Goddard has stepped down after it was revealed she had spent several months abroad during her brief tenure. The revelations in yesterday’s Times came days after it was reported the Inquiry’s chairwoman was confused by British laws. Even her terse resignation letter didn’t do much to reassure anyone thinking she had been the right pick: Goddard managed to get the Inquiry’s name wrong, mistakenly calling it the ‘Independent Inquiry into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse’ – quite a blunder in a 31-word resignation.

The Inquiry’s chair is rapidly turning into a poisoned chalice: Goddard is the third person to up sticks and walk away from heading up the Inquiry in just two years, following in the footsteps of Baroness Butler-Sloss, who lasted seven days, and Fiona Woolf, who resigned over apparent connections with Lord Brittan. On that second occasion, Theresa May was accused of ‘appalling incompetence‘. And whilst that was a charge too far, the chaos embroiling the Inquiry isn’t making the now-Prime Minister look good by any measure. Home Secretary Amber Rudd has promised to make an appointment ‘without delay’ to replace Goddard. But whilst speed is of the essence, there’s a danger that another mistake could be made in the next appointment. Meanwhile, many victims are still waiting for answers and victims understandably nervous at the prospect of giving evidence to the Inquiry won’t find much reassurance in the turmoil at the top. Dame Lowell spoke yesterday of the Inquiry’s ‘legacy of failure’. Let’s hope for their sake that she can be proved wrong.