Claimants Should Avoid Mistakes For Better Criminal Injury Compensation Chances

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) has strict guidelines that must be followed when they decide whether to award compensation to victims of crime in the UK. To help ensure that they receive the fairest and most reasonable offer of compensation, there are certain mistakes that criminal injury claimants should avoid making. CICA is meant as a last resort for victims who are unable to track down the culprit of the crime, or for those victims where the culprit is unable to meet compensation figures.

The crime should always be reported to the police, no matter how seemingly innocuous or minor the offence is. CICA is highly unlikely to award compensation if the victim of a crime did not report that crime to the police. Even if the claimant did not suffer any injury immediately after the incident, if they need to claim in the future then this is still an essential step.

As well as reporting the crime to police, it is important that claimants cooperate with the police during their enquiry. CICA will take a dim view of those claimants that were unwilling to take part in a criminal line-up or provide answers to police questions.

CICA will not make payment to people that were involved in any criminal act themselves, when the alleged offence took place. This means that if a person was directly involved in the crime committed, for example by starting an altercation that led to them being assaulted, or were involved in another criminal act at the time of the incident then they will not receive compensation. Failing to admit this at the time of the investigation or during the case can have serious and unwanted consequences.

There are strict deadlines and time limits associated with CICA claims. Failing to apply within the two year time limit means that a claimant will not usually be able to claim. If the victim of a crime is currently in the process of a civil claim action and the two year deadline is about to be reached, they can submit a claim to CICA in order to meet the required deadline.

CICA Criminal Injury ClaimsNov 19th, 20130 comments