Survivors of abuse are being denied compensation due to their past criminal convictions

Many of the brave individuals who are reporting their historical abuse to the police and, subsequently bringing a claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA), are being denied remuneration due to their previous convictions.

The CICA was set up as a way to compensate those blameless victims of violent crime who have no other avenues to go down. While the money they receive can never eradicate the wrongdoings they have previously experienced, the compensation can go towards rebuilding their life in the form of providing the resources to start anew or giving the survivor a way to fund any counselling they may require.

Unfortunately, under the guidelines of their Scheme, the CICA may refuse to compensate an individual who has previously offended, even if the crimes they have committed have come as an indirect result of the abuse they have suffered.

The rule is in place to prevent those who have committed more severe crimes from claiming money from the state. However, this loophole has led to the CICA rejecting claims for those who have committed petty crimes, such as shoplifting or failure to pay for a TV license.

One such example of this was Ms Kim Mitchell, who was sexually abused by her PE teacher when she was just 8 years old. In 2017, Ms. Mitchel received a community order after she threatened her former employer due to him withholding her wages from her.

Due to this order, the CICA made the decision that she was not entitled to compensation due to their rules on previous criminal convictions. Ms Mitchell stated, “I feel like I’m being kicked while I’m already down, I didn’t commit a crime when I was eight.”[i]

The CICA has been heavily criticised on how it imposes its arbitrary rules in order for the system to save money. In 2016, a coalition of charities wrote to the justice secretary to warn that sexually abused children were being unfairly denied payments even if the perpetrators of the incidents had been jailed.[ii]

The CICA had also been found to be denying compensation to those who had been historically abused such as Sammy Woodhouse, on the basis that they had ‘consented’ to it.

Woodhouse was one of the more prominent survivors of the shocking Rotherham sex-grooming scandal and was one of nearly 700 child abuse victims at the time to have been refused a compensation pay-out by the CICA. Woodhouse said: “If an adult can privately think that it’s a child’s fault for being abused, beaten, raped, abducted, I think you’re in the wrong job.”[iii]

Earlier this year, the CICA also scrapped the so-called ‘same roof rule’, which unfairly denied survivors the access to the compensation that they were entitled to by blocking those who suffered at the hands of a family member that they were living with at the time prior to 1979.[iv] While, again, the idea behind the rule was to prevent an abuser from profiting from such compensation, the way in which the CICA used it was highly illogical and completely unfair.

Further Reading

To learn more about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, read our guide to the CICA here.

WHAT TO DO NEXT

If you need any help with a CICA enquiry or potential claim, get in touch today for a free initial consultation. Choose one of the methods on the right-hand side of this page, or call us on 0113 200 9787 to find out how we can help you.

[i] Independent Source

[ii] Guardian Source

[iii] Guardian Source 2

[iv] Rape Crisis Source