Now a third head quits child abuse probe – after taking 70 days out in first year

UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

Dame Lowell Goddard has resigned as head of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said.

The announcement comes just hours after the revelation that Dame Lowell had spent more than 70 days working abroad or on holiday in her first year in the role. …

An inquiry spokesman said she had spent 44 working days in New Zealand and Australia on inquiry business in the first financial year of the inquiry and that she is entitled to 30 days’ annual leave.

The inquiry has been beset by delays and controversies since it was first announced by the then home secretary Theresa May.

Baroness Butler-Sloss stood down in July 2014 amid questions over the role played by her late brother, Lord Havers, who was attorney general in the 1980s.

Her replacement Dame Fiona Woolf resigned following a barrage of criticism over her “establishment links”, most notably in relation to former home secretary Leon Brittan, who died in 2015.

Mrs May officially reconstituted the probe under Dame Lowell in March 2015 and placed it on a statutory footing, meaning it has the power to compel witnesses to give evidence.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.