 The government's Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority is currently under heavy fire for its policies on compensation to victims of crime. There is a sizable difference and thus glaring discrepancy, in those receiving a compensation payout from the CICA and those who take their case to civil court.
One young child was left paralysed on his right side, is blind in one eye, and has impaired speech and remains illiterate even though he is now a seven-year-old. The disabilities he has stem from an attack by his mother's former boyfriend when the child was only six months old.
A former inmate turned millionaire, dubbed the Lotto Rapist by the media, is being sued in civil court by a woman whom he sexually abused in 1988. The lotto rapist, Iorworth Hoare, a serial sex offender who had sexually abused or raped six other women, was found guilty and spent 16 years in prison.
During a day release from prison, Hoare purchased a winning lotto ticket that was worth £7.2 million. Mrs. A believes she is entitled to compensation from Hoare. This is Mrs A's second attempt at collecting damages for psychiatric injury she said she suffered after attempted rape incident.
Home Secretary Jack Straw announced proposed changes in the Criminal Injury Compensation Scheme (CICS) at Labour's Spring Conference in Glasgow.
The scheme is based on a tariff system that has been heavily criticised in such high profile cases like Lisa Potts, the teacher who shielded her students from a machete-wielding maniac at St. Luke's Church of England School in Wolverhampton and received multiple injuries including an almost severed arm but was paid only £49,784. Experts say that the same types of injuries would receive six-figure settlements in personal injury cases brought to court.
When Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells' families apply to the Criminal Injury Compensation Scheme they will each be eligible for an award of only £11,000, despite the fact that the scheme can award up to a maximum of £500,000. Victim's Crime Trust says that it is not okay for families who have endured such trauma, as the loss of a child to be offered such a "pittance".
Clive Elliot, the victims' group operations director, told the BBC, "The families should be given probably 100 times as much because, let's face it, they have to live with this tragedy for the entirety of their lives".
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