Fiona Woolf has resigned as the chairman of the government’s child abuse inquiry over concerns about her links to the Westminster establishment.
In a severe embarrassment for the government, the lord mayor of London stepped down after representatives of victims group said they had “unanimously” lost confidence in the process.
Woolf said: “I did not think it was going to be possible for me to chair it without everybody’s support.”
Theresa May, the home secretary, said she accepted the resignation with regret, given that she believed Woolf “would have carried out her duties with integrity impartiality and to the highest standard”.
May will make a statement to the Commons on Monday and has promised to personally consult with victims groups, after being criticised for sending officials in her place to a meeting on Friday.
The rest of the panel of experts appointed to the inquiry will begin work without a chairman in order to make some progress.
Woolf had come under pressure over her personal links to former home secretary Leon Brittan, who is likely to be called to give evidence to the inquiry over a dossier allegedly detailing Westminster paedophile activity that vanished from his department in the 1980s.
Survivors of child abuse had called on Woolf at a crucial meeting on Friday to stand down as the second head of the government’s inquiry.
It has emerged that the Home Office helped Woolf to redraft a letter seven times detailing her contact with Lord Brittan, in a way that downplayed their meetings.
Woolf, who is a former president of the Law Society, detailed in a four-page letter how she had lived in the same road in the capital as Brittan and his wife since 2004 and had been with them at a series of dinner parties.
As well as inviting the Brittans to dinner at her house three times, she had dined at their home twice, met Lady Brittan for coffee, sat on a prize-giving panel with her, and sponsored her £50 for a fun run.
