Today’s story about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority being caught out cutting awards to rape victims who’d been drinking before they were attacked reminds me of the days when I used to take on criminal injuries compensation appeals. Here’s the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme; you’ll see that paragraph 14 provides that
a claims officer may withhold or reduce an award where he considers that excessive consumption of alcohol or use of illicit drugs by the applicant contributed to the circumstances which gave rise to the injury in such a way as to make it inappropriate that a full award, or any award at all, be made.
There’s also a guide to the scheme, which at Part IV, para. 16 (pages 25-26) I think quite wrongly suggests that paragraph 14 of the Scheme requires the CICA to consider whether a victim’s drinking contributed to the attack. Perhaps this is how the practice of reducing rape awards came about.
I’m not going to slag off the CICA or the scheme: I think it’s right that the scheme provides for reductions in awards – or a complete refusal of compensation – where an applicant has contributed to what happened. The classic example is a fight, of course. And I also think that ruling on these awards is a difficult job.
I think it’s right to focus on political responsibility here, though. I suspect this obviously wrong practice has grown up because of pressure from ministers to ensure as little taxpayer’s money as possible is given out in compensation. This story also shows, sadly, how much more effective publicity can be at changing government policy on this kind of thing, and how ineffective the appeal system is in comparison.
And your opinion as to the level of ‘contribution’ arising from the excessive intake of alcohol? That’s an interesting study.
I think CICA has got this badly wrong. Just because someone is defenceless – admittedly as a result of fourteen Bacardi Breezers or whatever – does not change the position of the aggressor and/or the victim, surely? That a woman may have made a pass at an individual does not mean that he (or possibly she?) has diminished responsibility towards the drunkard.
I agree with you, Unsworth – I thought that was clear from the post. It doesn’t follow from what we think about rape cases though that drunkenness can’t justify reducing an award for any criminal injury, though. I think it can. Remember, the issue isn’t being “soft” on the attacker (in most of these cases the attacker is unknown and in no case does the attacker pay) but on being fair to the taxpayer. If you swear drunken insults at passers-by and one punches you, I think the taxpayer’s entitled to save a bit of cash compensating you, as opposed to the person who simply gets punched out of the blue.
Even more controversially (you may think) I was unusual among my Free Representation Unit colleagues back in the early 90s in thinking the rule that compensation could be reduced because of your previous convictions was fair. I think if, say, you’ve a history of getting into fights and have injured others, then the state is entitled to treat you, when someone gives you your own medicine one day, yo treat you as an equally deserving case as that of a person of good character.