UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail
What a deplorable fiasco the child sex abuse inquiry has become. Allegations of racism and misconduct against former chairman, Justice Lowell Goddard – coming shortly after the abrupt departure of the inquiry’s lead counsel Ben Emmerson and his junior – are just the latest in a catalogue of disasters.
Before mysteriously resigning, claiming it had been difficult to leave behind her family in New Zealand, Dame Lowell is said to have told colleagues that the growth of paedophilia in Britain was a result of the large number of Asian men living here, and complained of having to travel 50 miles from London to see a white face – all of which she denies.
She is also alleged to have thrown frequent tantrums, treated her staff with contempt and struggled to grasp key points of English law.
Disturbingly, the Home Office is accused of knowing about her shortcomings – but covering them up to avoid embarrassment. Two chairmen had already quit since the then Home Secretary Theresa May set up the inquiry in July 2014.
Certainly Dame Lowell was deeply unimpressive. In her first year in the £500,000-a-year job, she spent three months on holiday or overseas.
But unsuitable as she undoubtedly was, there is a much bigger problem with this inquiry. Its brief is so impossibly wide that in its present form it is doomed to failure.
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