Stalker’s victim ‘yet to receive payout’ after 14 years
City Hall commissioner calls for change in law to stop criminals avoiding payments worth millions
A VICTIMS COMMISSIONER claims she is still waiting for compensation from a convicted stalker 14 years after he was told by a court to pay her.
The man bombarded Claire Waxman with unwanted calls, gifts and cards, traced her to different addresses, turned up at her home and brought malicious litigations in an effort to force her to engage with him.
She had to move house several times, suffered ill health, stress-related weight loss and a miscarriage, was diagnosed with PTSD and left in a state of “emotional despair” from the harassment, which spanned 2003 to 2015, when he was jailed for a third time.
Yet Ms Waxman, the victims com
Shady art world
missioner for London, has said she has still not received the full £5,000 in compensation she was due from him and has written to ministers demanding reform of the “flawed” compensation rules that deny thousands of victims justice because the payments are written off or delayed.
She said she had been contacted by dozens of other victims including police officers who have been victims of assaults and have had to wait years, sometimes more than a decade, to receive their money. Like other victims, Ms Waxman said that she had been sent letters by HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) asking her to waive the payments but she has consistently refused. “My payments stopped for a number of years, then I got letters from the HMCTS asking if I would let it go. I made representations to say: ‘No, these payments are given in lieu of a prison sentence. If you let it go, you are undermining justice,’” Ms Waxman said.
The amount of outstanding unpaid compensation has risen from £71million to £89million since 2011, with between £500,000 and £2.7million written off each year, according to Ministry of Justice figures.
Ms Waxman is proposing Britain adopt the Dutch model where the courts pay the victim’s compensation then take responsibility for recouping the money from offenders.
In a letter to justice minister Edward Argar, Ms Waxman said: “Paying the victim upfront would avoid the unnecessary ongoing relationship between victim and offender.”
The Ministry of Justice said: “We do everything possible to make sure criminals pay back what they owe and compensation for victims is always the first payment collected from them.”