UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Clive Coleman
Legal correspondent, BBC News

Wanted: highly respected chairman or chairwoman, available for up to 10 years, robust in the face of press scrutiny, and with no ties to the British establishment – it is becoming the most toxic job description in public life. Finding the right person to chair this vast, complex and crucial public inquiry is proving all but impossible.

The departure of Dame Lowell Goddard has plunged the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) into crisis.

And what makes that so bitterly ironic is that she was precisely the person appointed to be the steadying hand on an inquiry that many felt had lost its way before it had even started.

The first chairwoman, Baroness Butler-Sloss, a hugely experienced retired judge, stood down after a week because of concerns relating to the fact she was the sister of…