UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Alice Ross and agencies
Tuesday 11 October 2016
Dame Lowell Goddard received £80,000 in pay and allowances when she quit as head of the inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Home Office has confirmed.
The New Zealand high court judge received a severance payment of two months’ salary and flights home when she resigned 18 months after being hired by the then home secretary, Theresa May.
Goddard quit in August, saying the inquiry had been beset by a “legacy of failure”. Her resignation came the day after the Times reported that she had spent three months on holiday or abroad in her first year in the job.
The wide-ranging inquiry into historical sex abuse was launched in July 2014 in the wake of allegations of cover-ups of abuse by Jimmy Savile and the Lib Dem MP Cyril Smith.
Goddard’s appointment in February 2015 made her Britain’s highest-paid civil servant, with an annual salary and allowances of almost £500,000. The inquiry also spent £75,000 on travel to and from New Zealand for Goddard and her family, a financial report published by the inquiry shows.
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