Child abuse inquiry head 'spent over two months abroad or on holiday' during first year in role
The head of a national inquiry into child abuse has spent more than two months abroad or on holiday during her first year in the role, according to reports.
Dame Lowell Goddard spent 30 days on holidays and logged a further 44 days working from abroad, The Times said.
A spokesman for the inquiry reportedly confirmed the numbers to the newspaper while stressing that she was "always on call" if needed.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was set up in 2014 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal amid calls for a wider examination of whether UK institutions had done enough to prevent abuse.
Dame Goddard, a 67-year-old judge from New Zealand, was appointed to head the inquiry after two other chairwomen resigned.
The first head, Baroness Butler-Sloss, stood down in July 2014 amid questions over the role played by her late brother, Lord Havers, who was attorney general in the 1980s.
Her replacement Dame Fiona Woolf resigned following a barrage of criticism over her "establishment links", most notably in relation to former home secretary Leon Brittan, who died in 2015.