Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, Baroness Butler-Sloss

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The Right Honourable The Baroness Butler-Sloss GBE PC

Deputy Coroner of the Queen's Household and Assistant Deputy Coroner for Surrey
In office 7 September 2006 – June 2007
President of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice
In office 1999 – April 2005
Succeeded by	Sir Mark Potter
Lord Justice of Appeal
In office 1988 – 1999
High Court judge, Family Division
In office 1979 – 1988

Born	10 August 1933 (1933-08-10) (age 74) Buckinghamshire, England
Nationality	British
Spouse	Joseph Butler-Sloss
Relations	Sir Cecil Havers (father) Nigel Havers (nephew)

Anne Elizabeth Oldfield Butler-Sloss, Baroness Butler-Sloss (née Havers) GBE PC (born 10 August 1933) is a retired English judge. Until June 2007 she was responsible, as Deputy Coroner of the Queen's Household and Assistant Deputy Coroner for Surrey for overseeing the inquests into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed. She stood down from that task with effect from that date, and the inquest was conducted by Lord Justice Scott Baker.

Born Anne Elizabeth Oldfield Havers, in Buckinghamshire,^[1] her father was judge Sir Cecil Havers. She was sister to the late Lord Chancellor the Lord Havers, and is aunt to his son, actor Nigel Havers. She was educated at Wycombe Abbey School after Broomfield House School, Kew.

She was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple in 1955. In 1958, she married Joseph Butler-Sloss. She was appointed a Registrar at the Principal Registry of the Family Division in 1970. In 1979, she became the fourth woman to be appointed as a High Court judge,^[2] after Elizabeth Lane, Rose Heilbron, and Margaret Booth. As were all previous female High Court judges, she was assigned to the Family Division. She was also made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).^[3]

In 1988, she became the first woman appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal (judge of the Court of Appeal),^[4] having chaired the Cleveland child abuse inquiry in the previous year. In 1999, she became President of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice,^[5] the first woman to hold this position and the highest-ranking woman judge in the United Kingdom until Brenda Hale became the first female Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, in January 2004.

She was advanced to the rank of Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 2005 New Year Honours.^[6] On 12 January 2005, it was announced that she was retiring, being replaced as President of the Family Division by Sir Mark Potter, then a Lord Justice of Appeal.

She is Chairman of the Security Commission. On 3 May 2006, it was announced^[7] by the House of Lords Appointments Commission that she would be one of seven new life peers - so-called 'people's peers'. She was gazetted as Baroness Butler-Sloss, of Marsh Green in the County of Devon, on 16 June 2006 (dated 13 June 2006).^[8] On 4 August 2006 she was appointed to the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved for a period of five years.^[9]

On 7 September 2006 she was appointed as Deputy Coroner of the Queen's Household and Assistant Deputy Coroner for Surrey for the purpose of hearing the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. On 24 April 2007, she announced she was stepping down in June 2007, saying she lacked the experience required to deal with an inquest with a jury. The role of coroner for the inquests was transferred to Lord Justice Scott Baker. This had been preceded by the overturning by the High Court of her earlier decision to hold the inquest without a jury.

She became Chancellor of the University of the West of England in 1993 and an Honorary Fellow of St. Hilda's College, Oxford, Peterhouse, Cambridge, King's College London, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. She sits on the Selection Panel for Queen's Counsel.