The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) is a UK Government Scheme designed to compensate innocent victims of violent and/or sexual crime.
Paragraph 2 of Annex B to the Scheme defines a ‘crime of violence’ as a crime that involves:
- A physical attack
- Any other act or omission of a violent nature that causes physical injury to a person
- A threat against a person, causing fear of immediate violence in circumstances that would cause a person of reasonable firmness to be put in such fear;
- A sexual assault to which a person did not in fact consent; or
- Arson or fire-raising
Paragraph 88 of the Scheme provides that where an applicant was a child under the age of 18 on the date of the incident giving rise to the criminal injury and it was reported to the police before their 18th birthday, their application for compensation must be received by the CICA by their 20th birthday or it may be rejected. If the incident was not reported before their 18th birthday, then their application must be received by the CICA within two years after the date of the first report to the police.
Paragraph 3 of Annex D to the Scheme provides that an award will not be made to an applicant who, on the date of their application, has an unspent conviction for an offence as specified by the Scheme.
The above rules and the definition of a crime of violence seem particularly harsh in the case of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and they often preclude them from being eligible to make an application to the Scheme for compensation.
Some victims and survivors have criminal convictions because of the psychological trauma they have suffered because of the abuse. Many victims and survivors are very often unable to speak about the sexual abuse for many years, sometimes even decades, preferring to bury the traumatic memories, and what about those who are the victims of online predators whose crime cannot be technically defined as a ‘crime of violence’ under the present Scheme?
In March 2015 the Home Secretary established the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
The Inquiry has now published its Final Report which can be found here.
The Inquiry recognised that the focus of the CICA on ‘crimes of violence’ fails to take into account that child sexual abuse, particularly online sexual abuse, may occur without physical contact or injury.
The Scheme fails to recognise the impact that sexual abuse in childhood can have on a person’s life and behaviour and that the trauma of abuse may have directly contributed to instances of offending.
The two years’ time limit is inadequate for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
Therefore, the Inquiry made the following recommendation (recommendation 18) to amend the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.
- The Scheme should include other forms of child sexual abuse, including online-facilitated sexual abuse.
- The rule on unspent convictions should be amended so that applicants with unspent convictions where offences are likely to be linked to the circumstances of their sexual abuse as a child are not automatically excluded from making an application.
- Victims and survivors of child sexual abuse should have seven years (not two) to apply. So where the abuse was reported to the police before the applicant was 18, they now have until the age of 25 to make an application. Where the abuse was not reported to the police before the age of 18, the applicant has seven years from the date of the first report to the police to make their application to the CICA.
Comment
The Inquiry expects the UK and Welsh Governments to act upon its recommendations promptly so hopefully, it will not be too long before the rules change.
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