Janet Smith (judge)

This article is about the judge. For the professor of moral theology, see Janet E. Smith.

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. 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.

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.