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Neutral Citation Number:	2012 UKUT 205 AAC
Reported Number:
File Number:	JR 1043 2011
Appellant:	RS
Respondent:	First Tier- Tribunal & CICA
Judge/Commissioner:	Three-Judge Panel / Tribunal of Commissioners
Date Of Decision:	14/06/2012
Date Added:	25/07/2012
Main Category:	Criminal Injuries Compensation
Main Subcategory:	other
Secondary Category:	Tribunal procedure and practice (including UT)
Secondary Subcategory:	evidence
Notes:	The Court of Appeal decision is reported as [2013] AACR 34. Criminal injuries compensation – approach to be taken to claims by secondary victims – interpretation and application of paragraph 9(b) and the term “immediate aftermath” The respondent’s wife, the primary victim, was sexual assaulted by a neighbour. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) rejected the respondent’s claim for criminal injuries compensation for psychiatric injury. The First-tier Tribunal (F-tT) dismissed the respondent’s appeal. The CICA appealed against the Upper Tribunal’s (UT) decision to quash the F-tT’s decision. The issue before the court was whether the respondent qualified as a secondary victim under paragraph 9(b) of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (the Scheme) 2008. Held, allowing the appeal, that: 1. the UT had adopted too broad an approach to the first limb of paragraph 9(b)(ii) thereby confusing and conflating two distinct and separate concepts: (1) the occasion when the primary victim sustained the relevant injury and (2) the consequences of that injury. A secondary victim was to be compensated only if they suffered an injury during the actual event itself or had been “closely involved” in its “immediate aftermath”. A series of events might amount to an “occasion”: see North Glamorgan NHS Trust v Walters [2002] EWCA Civ 1792. But the expression “witnessed and was present on the occasion” in paragraph 9(b)(ii) must refer to the event which constituted the crime and not to its later consequences, otherwise the application of the term “immediate aftermath” was strained and artificial. The reasoning of the UT in the case of AP v First-tier Tribunal (F-tT) and Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CIC) [2011] UKUT 368 (AAC) and of the Court of Appeal in Taylor v A Novo UK Limited [2013] EWCA Civ 194 was approved (paragraphs 12 to 15); 2. the UT wrongly held that the F-tT erred in law in relation to the second limb of paragraph 9(b)(ii). The F-tT had not adopted too rigid an approach as would have arisen if it had taken the view that “immediate aftermath” was strictly limited to one hour following the actual event (paragraphs 16 to 18); 3. some caution was needed when drawing assistance from the common law cases in tort in interpreting the term “immediate aftermath”. The decision-maker should apply the ordinary meaning of the Scheme’s words. The term “immediate aftermath” may allow a degree of temporal and spatial flexibility but the focus of the provision is upon the secondary victim’s exposure to the consequences of the crime and these are likely to follow it more or less immediately (paragraph 19).
Decision(s) to Download:	JR 1043 2011-01.doc [2013] AACR 34ws.rtf