Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 (Amendment) Instrument 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-05-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this is incredibly important business. I add my tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, for the series of reports that she has produced in this area. Indeed, I am about to read her most recent report on anti-social behaviour I enter this—and any—debate on CICA’s operations with reservations. On the one hand, it is an opportunity to congratulate CICA on the work that it does on crimes of violence and the compensation that is generally payable. On the other hand, I harbour profound concerns about its treatment of sexual offences, and in particular rape. The scheme is open to abuse, both "under roof", as dealt with in this debate, and outside in the community. I am not accusing all those who make applications of being dishonest; a great majority of people act honourably when they are a victim and make an application quite rightfully. However, there are those who abuse the system and I will concentrate my remarks today on such people The basis of my case was made in 2007 by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, who was then Minister of State in the Home Office. She challenged me on an inconsistency in the Government’s statistics to which I had drawn attention. In her letter to me of 7 March that year, she wrote: "The difference basically arises from the fact that the word ‘rape’ is not used as an injury description in the tariff to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Unlike most of the 440 injuries listed in the tariff, such as a broken bone or scarring, rape is not an injury as such" These are the noble and learned Baroness’s words. She continued: "Rather, it is an offence and one which frequently causes little physical injury (the award being essentially for the trauma of the assault)" Therein—the "trauma of the assault"—lies the problem. A system based on that invites fraudulent claims. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, a former Minister in the department, made a comment on this to the House on 22 January 2018. I had asked: "My Lords, does the Minister accept that there may be circumstances in which an accuser may have compensation in mind in making the accusation?" The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, replied: "My Lords, obviously I cannot comment on any individual case but it may well be that that is the motive".—[Official Report, 22/1/18; col. 834.] So what is the evidence? We have the case of Sarah-Jane Hilliard, in an article for the Daily Mail—I am sorry to have to quote that newspaper—on Friday 14 August 2009, with the headline: "Girl faces jail after crying rape to claim £7,500 payout" The story begins: "A woman faces jail after luring a man into having sex with her and then crying rape in a plot to claim thousands of pounds in compensation. Sarah-Jane Hilliard, 20, applied for £7,500 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority days after falsely accusing Grant Bowers, 19, of raping her" Then we have more recent cases such as the Danny Day case and the Jemma Beale case. In those cases, compensation was paid and was followed by imprisonment. Then we have the Joshua Lines, George Owen and Bartolomeo de Lotbiniere cases—all of them were accused and charged and then, following police investigations, the CPS decided that the evidence was not there and dropped the cases. In all these cases the lives of the accused were placed on hold and, in some cases, destroyed. What we do not know in those cases is whether CICA compensation was sought or indeed paid.