Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme Cutback

With effect from the 27th November 2012, the Government abolished awards for less

serious injuries and reduced awards for those that will still be paid out on, in relation to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Overall, around 90% of awards will either be cut or axed altogether. Amongst those who are no longer eligible for an award, include those who suffer broken noses and moderately concussive head injuries. Moreover, regardless of how seriously they are injured, victims of dog attacks will no longer receive any award.

The Scheme was set up to compensate victims of violent crime for injuries they sustained as a result of a criminal assault, and for the dependents of murder victims, who cannot obtain compensation from the perpetrator.

The decision by the Coalition Government to make these cuts to the scheme has been widely condemned. John Hannett, the General Secretary of the Shopworkers Union, Usdaw (which campaigns on behalf of retail workers injured during robberies), stated: "The decision of Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs to support these cuts means that many injured victims of crime are going to suffer financially as well as physically. None of the MPs who supported the cuts should ever again have the gall to say they put victims of crime first. The entire process of making the cuts has been a shameful and frankly grubby episode in the exercise of government, one made all the more shocking because it's innocent victims of violent crime who are going to suffer. The Government should do much more to make victims aware of the changes, but I suspect its silence reflects the weakness of its own case for the cuts and the inherent embarrassment of highlighting them."

The MP for Easington, Grahame Morris, called the cuts "punitive and draconian." He stated: "Thousands of seriously injured victims of crime and their families have relied on these payments. I and my fellow Labour MPs urged ministers to at least soften the blow. We were ignored. They forced these cruel and unnecessary changes through the Commons in a late-night, last-minute vote. It is a truly callous way to treat seriously injured victims of crime and the dependents of victims of homicide, who have already suffered so much. We will continue to put the interests of victims first, but I am deeply disappointed that Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs chose to ignore the plight facing so many seriously injured victims of crime, and voted for these cruel and unnecessary cuts. In my own constituency alone, over the next two years over 100 seriously injured victims of crime will see their criminal injuries compensation either abolished or cut."

by: Richard Antrobus

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