Description
The focus in a claim under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme by a person not present at the scene of crime was upon the immediate aftermath of the crime.
The Applicant's ('A') former partner had been killed in an assault in July 2009. A attended the hospital in the early hours of the following day. A also saw the deceased's badly decomposed body at the undertakers some four months later. A suffered psychiatric injury as a result of the experience and applied to the CICA for compensation on the basis of close involvement in the aftermath of the deceased's death.
The First-tier tribunal refused the application holding that the hospital attendance did not occur in the immediate aftermath and that A's psychiatric injury had been caused by the experience in the undertaker's. A's application to challenge that finding by way of judicial review was subsequently dismissed. A applied for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Briggs LJ dismissed the application holding that there was a narrow basis upon which someone, not present at the scene of the crime, could recover compensation for psychiatric injury under the scheme. The focus of the scheme was on the immediate aftermath of the crime rather than upon the medical consequences.
