Dame Janet Hilary Smith, DBE (born 29 November 1940), styled The Rt Hon. Lady Justice Smith, is a British judge and former President of the Council of The Inns of Court.
She was the judge who prepared a report on the activities of the British serial killer Harold Shipman — The Shipman Inquiry. [1]Its findings were published on 19 July 2002, and established that Shipman - jailed for life in January 2000 for 15 murders committed between 1995 and 1998 - had murdered at least 215 patients since March 1975. She also stated that there was a real suspicion that he had murdered as many 260 people.[2]
She was appointed a High Court Judge in 1992 (and received the customary appointment as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire), and became the fourth woman to be promoted to the Court of Appeal in 2002, following Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss (now Baroness Butler-Sloss) (1988), Dame Brenda Hale (now Baroness Hale of Richmond) (1999) and Dame Mary Arden (2000).
In January 2003, she was appointed Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University.