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.
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