UNITED KINGDOM
The Times
Sean O’Neill | Andrew Norfolk
October 15 2016
The Times
Dame Lowell Goddard said yesterday that she was put under pressure by Theresa May and her officials to accept the job as chairwoman of Britain’s largest and most ambitious public inquiry.
The New Zealand High Court judge, who resigned in August and has this week denied accusations of serious misconduct, said that in the weeks before she accepted the post in February last year she was still not sure that the role was right for her. She said that talks on her £500,000-a-year package began after she agreed to become the third chairwoman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
Dame Lowell was picked because she had conducted an inquiry into police handling of child abuse cases in New Zealand. However, a Privy Council judgment in 2005 criticised her management of a murder trial that some judges said had “gone off the rails”.
In a statement issued through her lawyers Dame Lowell, 67, said that she was approached by the British High Commission in November 2014 and spoke to John O’Brien, a senior Home Office official, by telephone just before Christmas that year.
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.