A senior MP has hit out at the “disgraceful” refusal of Dame Lowell Goddard, the former head of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, to appear before a parliamentary committee.

The former high court judge, who quit the inquiry in August after 18 months at its helm, has since faced accusations in the press of racism. And while she has answered questions posed by the influential Home Affairs Committee in writing, Dame Lowell Goddard has refused to return from her native New Zealand to London to appear in person.

In a letter to the committee the former chair of the inquiry dismissed the accusations, however, as “malicious defamatory attacks” and said she was disappointed there has been no Government defence of her “despite the fact information refuting some of the more serious allegations has been held by the Home Office and your committee since the time of my initial recruitment”

But Yvette Cooper, the new chair of the influential Home Affairs Select Committee in Westminster, said the decision by Dame Lowell Goddard not to appear was “disgraceful”.

She added: "Dame Goddard has been paid significant amounts of public money to do an extremely important job which she suddenly resigned from, leaving a series of questions about what has been happening over the last 18 months and why the Inquiry got into difficulties.

"Yet rather than give oral evidence to answer these questions she is relying on the fact that she is out of the UK to avoid the requirement to give evidence to Parliament.

"This is an astonishing response from a paid public servant who should know how important transparency is in an inquiry as sensitive and crucial as this one. Child abuse survivors have been let down by the extremely rocky start to this inquiry and we do need answers as to why it went wrong in order to be confident it is back on track now.”

Ms Cooper added that the committee believes it is “vital” for Dame Lowell Goddard to give oral evidence and she will now explore “what options are available to us to requite her to come before the Committee should she enter the UK again at any time in the future”.