Devon CICA compensation lawyer, Liz Duncan, has succeeded in getting her client’s award increased by over £200,000.
Liz represented a woman who had suffered abuse as a child. The abuse had a profound and debilitating effect on her client’s life. She found it difficult to work and suffered serious mental health issues.
She did not feel able to cope with the idea of taking legal action for many years, but she eventually found the courage to reach out to Liz for advice.
Liz told her client that she could seek compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, known as the CICA. This is a state funded scheme which compensates victims of violent crime.
CICA compensation is governed by very strict rules, one of which relates to the time people have to make a claim. Unfortunately Liz’s client was well beyond the normal cut-off date and technically ‘out of time’. However, Liz advised that her client could make a case for those rules to be relaxed given the trauma she had suffered and went ahead with an application.
The CICA agreed with Liz and made her client an award of compensation. However, the sum awarded, £22,000, was much lower than Liz felt was appropriate.
Accordingly, Liz sought a review of the CICA compensation award, and again the CICA agreed with her. The CICA increased their award substantially, raising the sum of compensation from £22,000 to over £240,000.
Liz’s client was delighted with the outcome. While the money will not erase the horror of the abuse, it will enable Liz’s client to access specialist, privately funded medical services, and give her the peace of mind of financial security.
Speaking out against the CICA’s practice of making inadequate awards of compensation Liz urges applicants to review and appeal decisions that are blatantly unfair. “The CICA,” she says, “should not be a lottery, but unfortunately all too often it is.”
Liz is based in Devon and Somerset, but deals with CICA compensation claims nationally.
