Compensation review for victims of child sex abuse

A REVIEW is to be launched into the role of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) amid claims that hundreds of child abuse victims are being denied payouts.

Introduced in 1964 and funded through the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), the CICA pays more than £140million in compensation to blameless victims of crime each year.

But the scheme has come in for intense criticism after it emerged that some people who were sexually abused in childhood were not eligible for payouts because officials claimed they had consented to the crime.

According to MOJ figures around 30 applications a year have been rejected on consent grounds. Liberty, the human rights charity, is currently appealing against a CICA decision made in 2015, in which a 13-year-old boy was refused compensation because it was deemed he had consented.

The CICA has also been criticised over historic rules which mean victims who lived with their abuser before 1979 were not entitled to compensation. The “same roof rule”, brought in to prevent criminals benefiting from payments made to victims they were related to, was abolished almost 40 years ago.

Victims making historic claims are still falling foul of the loophole, with more than 180 applications being rejected by CICA in the last two years alone.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that there is no simple mechanism available to claim cash back from fantasists who make fraudulent claims.

Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, who has said compensation has a “critical role” in helping victims of crime recover from their ordeal, has been asked to lead a review next year into how the scheme can be improved.

An MOJ spokesman said: “We are absolutely clear [that] victims who have been groomed should never be treated as if they consented. We want to make sure every victim gets the compensation they deserve.”