Lowell Goddard

The Honourable Dame Lowell Goddard DNZM KC
Justice of the High Court of New Zealand
Incumbent
Assumed office December 1995
Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
In office 4 February 2015 – 4 August 2016
Appointed by	Theresa May (as Home Secretary)
Preceded by	Fiona Woolf
Succeeded by	Alexis Jay
Chair of Independent Police Conduct Authority, New Zealand
In office 2007–2012
Preceded by	Ian Borrin
Succeeded by	Sir David Carruthers
Personal details
Born	Lowell Patria Goddard (1948-11-25) 25 November 1948 (age 75) Auckland, New Zealand
Spouse(s)	Sir John Scott, 5th Baronet ​ ​ (m. 1969; div. 1971)​ Christopher Hodson ​ (m. 1992)​
Children	1

Dame Lowell Patria Goddard, DNZM, KC (born 25 November 1948) is a former New Zealand High Court judge, from 1995 to 2015. She is thought to be the first person of Māori ancestry to have been appointed to the High Court. In 1988, she was one of the first two women to be appointed Queen's Counsel in New Zealand and in 1989 became the first woman to hold a Crown warrant. In 1992, she became Deputy Solicitor-General for New Zealand. Between 2007 and 2012 she chaired New Zealand's Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA). In 2010 she was elected as an independent expert to the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) and served in that capacity until 2016. From February 2015 until August 2016, she chaired the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales.^{[1] [2]}