The two previous chairwomen left over links to the British establishment, while Dame Lowell has come under media scrutiny for the length of time she was on leave or out of the country.
Advertisement
Goddard had recently started sitting on the preliminary hearings into 13 public investigations into non-recent child abuse in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, Westminster, Lambeth council, Medolmsley detention centre, and allegations against the late Lord Janner and the late Cyril Smith.
The shock departure of Dame Lowell Goddard QC from the British inquiry into child sex abuse, the third person to have left the position, has left some claiming she has let down the victims of abuse by British establishment figures.
I know you will want to be reassured that work continues without delay, and most importantly that victims and survivors know that the Government’s commitment to this Inquiry is undiminished.
In accepting Dame Lowell’s resignation, she wrote: “I know how personally committed you have been to ensuring that the inquiry is a success for those at its heart: the survivors and the victims”.
He said Dame Lowell had been the wrong choice from the beginning and her resignation was a chance to get the child abuse inquiry on the right track.
The first chair of the inquiry was Baroness Butler-Sloss, who stood down in July 2014 amid questions over the role of her late brother, Lord Havers, who was attorney general in the 1980s.
Campaign groups and politicians have called for a replacement for Dame Lowell Goddard to be found “urgently”.
An inquiry spokesman told The Times: “The chair spent 44 working days in New Zealand and Australia on inquiry business in the first financial year of the inquiry”.
The reasons for Justice Goddard’s resignation are unclear but BBC home affairs correspondent Tom Symonds described it as a “crisis” for the inquiry.
“You have consistently demonstrated your desire to leave no stone unturned in order that the voices of those victims might be heard. I trust you will accept this decision”, Dame Lowell wrote. She said the inquiry had a “legacy of failure” which had been “hard to shake off”.
Goddard, 67, announced her resignation on 4 August after it emerged that she had spent 44 working days in New Zealand and Australia in the inquiry’s first year.
“With regret, I agree this is the right decision”.
A report claimed that this was in addition to her 30 days of annual holiday leave bringing the total to 74 days – which equates to three working months.
“It has been quite frustrating over the last two years since the inquiry was announced in 2014”.
Thank you for your letter today, offering your resignation as Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
The judge’s salary of £360,000 is double what the Prime Minister earns – and she is also given another £110,000 a year for accommodation.
At the time, Goddard said the inquiry would be long, challenging and complex.
Mrs May then reconstituted the probe and appointed New Zealand judge Dame Justice Goddard in March 2015 placing the probe on a statutory footing, meaning it has the power to compel witnesses to give evidence.
“The Government must find a new chair as a matter of great urgency”.
Advertisement
“This is a huge undertaking and it would be wrong to instantly start hearing evidence having not put those policies and procedures in place”.
