Making a Criminal Injury Claim

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Claiming for Injuries Resulting from a Crime

The United Kingdom has the oldest compensation scheme in place, specifically meant for those who are victims of crime. The first version of the criminal injury compensation scheme was introduced in 1964. Today, if you are a victim of a crime, then there is every possibility to make a criminal injury claim under the criminal injuries compensation scheme.

In order to claim compensation for a criminal injury, you will have to go through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. There are three ways of initiating the claim process; you can take the support of Victim Support, through online at the CICA website or by post.

Criteria for Making a Claim

If you want to make a criminal injury claim, there are certain criteria that you need to fulfill.

• The injuries suffered by you should be serious enough to meet the minimum compensation awarded by CICA, which is £ 1000.

• The injury should have taken place in England, Wales or Scotland

• Your criminal injury claim application should be within two years of the incident taking place, unless there is a reasonable ground for having abstained so long, like child abuse.

Types of Compensation

Normally, there are four kinds of compensation that you can claim. They include:

1. Criminal injury compensation, which provides for a Tariff Award, according to the CICA. You can make a claim for such compensation if you have personally suffered injuries from the crime or if your child, below the age of eighteen, has suffered injuries or if someone who is mentally unable to make a claim is injured.

2. You can also make a criminal injury claim for compensation if a loved one is fatally injured in the crime - it can be your wife, child, parents, husband or partner. Similarly, you can also apply for a criminal injury claim if you were financially dependent on the person killed in the crime. You can also make a claim for Funeral expenses also in the application.

Apart from the above two, the other types of compensation can only be applied if the criminal injury claim has been awarded. They include:

3. If, due to the criminal injury, you lose the ability to earn an income for more than 28 weeks, you can make a claim for income loss. This ensures that the payment begins from the 29th week onwards.

4. You can also make a claim for special expenses as this will provide for expenses that are not covered under the NHS. These expenses may be towards the cost of residential care homes, etc.

The Claim Process

If you are intending to file for a criminal injury claim with the CICA for compensation, you will have to show that you have been the victim of a violent crime and your physical or mental injuries are a result of the crime in question. A point to be noted here is that you just have to prove that a crime has taken place and you have been injured because of it. You do not have to show that the crime in question has resulted in a conviction.

If you firmly believe that you have sufficient grounds for making a criminal injury claim, you can contact a personal injury solicitor and fill a compensation form and submit it to CICA. In turn CICA will acknowledge the receipt of your application and processes the claim. Now, this can be quite a lengthy process and can take up to eighteen months from the date of your criminal injury claim submission. The minimum compensation for a criminal injury claim is £ 1000 while the maximum compensation is £ 250,000.

Finally, if you are not happy with the CICA award, you can request for a review within 90 days of the original award being made. If you still have problems with the outcome, you can make an appeal to the CICA Panel within 30 days of the outcome of the review process. However, if you are still not satisfied with the outcome, then you have all the right to appeal your claim in a higher court of law.

Other popular articles related to this one include: Criminal Injury Claim, Untraced Driver Compensation Claims, Criminal Compensation Claims, Crime Injury Compensation Claim, Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, Compensation for Criminal Injuries, Criminal Injury Claim, and . Please let us know if you find any errors.

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