Clause 38 - Extent
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Ms Vera Baird (Redcar, Labour)
I, too, welcome the proposal, and have some queries that are closely related to each other.
The criminal injuries compensation scheme has its own internal appellate structures and they are often used for issues of quantum. It can take a considerable time to settle on the appropriate payment to a victim because the authorities have to look at issues such as how long the trauma lasted and the extent of the injury. I have noted that the limitation period does not start until compensation is paid. After that, the state may embark on the job of recovering from the perpetrator the compensation that is to be paid. I heard clearly in the reply given earlier that there is no contingency in terms of getting the amount. I would like reassurance that there is no question of the victim waiting until the action against the perpetrator is triggered and completed to receive her payout, as that could be a long wait.
Another issue, which is closely linked, is the right—proper, I suppose—of the perpetrator to seek a review under proposed new section 7B. Under subsection (2)(e) of that new section, there is provision for review of both the determination that an amount is recoverable, and the amount determined to be recoverable. Therefore, the review can be not just
about whether the person is the right chap, which is all that we thought of under proposed new section 7B(1), but about the amount to be recovered from him. What is that about? Is the provision only about apportionment, so that if there are two sums and the claims officer has said that the person should pay all of it, it can be argued that he should pay only half? Is that what the right to discuss the sum on review is about? I would not want it to be about any reopening of the quantum that the CICA has already decided should be paid out to the victim, because that will have been fixed and settled, and it ought to have been paid out by the time that this stage is reached. It would greatly concern me if, ex post that occurring, the perpetrator were able to bring forward fresh medical evidence to suggest that the victim was not as traumatised as she had suggested, or anything of that kind.