Child Abuse Law
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​​​​​R V CRIMINAL INJURIES COMPENSATION BOARD [1993] PIQR P314
 
FACTS:-
 
The Applicant claimed to have suffered serious injury as a victim of offences involving sexual abuse against her by her stepfather between 1967 and 1976. The CICB turned down her claim a) because it was too long after the events complained of and b) because the events complained of occurred before the 1st October 1979. She applied for judicial review of the decision.
 
JUDGMENT:-
 
Lord Justice Leggatt considered the Applicant’s reasons for delay, as set in medical reports submitted on her behalf. It was not December 1988 that she learned that young girls were going to her stepfather’s house that went to the police. He pleaded guilty to charges in relation to other girls, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to proceed with her allegations.
 
Legatt LJ also considered the origins of the pre 1979 rule. He referred to the Eighth Report of the Board published in 1972, which recommended that the exclusion of applicants who were living together as members of the same family should be reconsidered. That was followed in 1978 by the Report of an Interdepartmental Working Party, who reviewed the Scheme. They said that the rule should be amended. However when the Scheme was changed, it was not made retrospective.
 
Legatt LJ said that in reality circumstance had been amended in which public money might be paid out to Applicants, none of whom had any entitlement to it because it was a bounty of the Crown. The exclusion of Applicants by reason of the “same roof” award was no more irrational than was the exclusion before the Scheme came into force. The reasons for the exclusionary rule at the outset were sound. They had been intended to stop an abuser from getting access to compensation awarded to someone with whom they might still have contact or be living with. The exercise of discretionary power by the Secretary of State under prerogative power could not in this instance be impugned. The issue of the Applicant being out of time, did not therefore need to be decided.  

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