Another Successful Appeal to The Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal
I am delighted to hear this week that an appeal I drafted to the Criminal Injuries Tribunal on behalf of one of my clients has been successful despite originally being rejected twice by the CICA as being out of time.
My client was sexually abused by her father for over 10 years as a child. In 2010 aged 22 she decided to report him to police and he was convicted of serious sexual abuse before being sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence in 2012.
After the conviction a counsellor advised her about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme but told her to wait to apply until her abuser had been sentenced. Just one month after the sentencing hearing my client then made her application to the CICA. The CICA rejected her application as being out of time because she had not made the application within two years of the abuse. The client submitted a request for a review of this decision but again it was rejected by the CICA for the same reasons.
I recently submitted an appeal to the Tribunal on behalf of my client requesting that her application be allowed out of time. Whilst generally applications must be made within 2 years of the incident, the CICA does have discretion to extend this time period. This discretion had been totally disregarded in my client’s case. Unfortunately this appears to be the norm and something that I see far too often.
I have now received the judgment from the Tribunal allowing my client’s appeal. This is a fantastic result because the abuser does not have any assets himself and so the CICA is the only route for this client to obtain compensation, as is the same for many other victims. The application must now be processed by the CICA as if it had been accepted at the outset.
This is just the latest success for Bolt Burdon Kemp in a 100% track record of being successful in appeals to the Tribunal. Sadly the CICA however shows no signs of changing their approach to these applications and as they continue to be wrongly rejected, innocent victims of abuse are being denied access to their only source of compensation.
