Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2008
CICA Exceptional risk cases (police)
CICA compensation for police officers injured on duty.
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If you were injured while preventing a criminal offence or dealing with the immediate effect of a crime, the CICA will examine whether you took an exceptional risk. In reality, this usually applies to those professionals who are trained to assess risk. For example, police officers and fire-fighters are trained to undertake a risk analysis as the situation evolves. Unlike civilians, the professional would be able to identify that a certain course of action would entail risk or perhaps, even be more risky.
The CICA will assess: whether the risk was exceptional and whether the applicant was justified in taking the risk. The first part of the test, the exceptional risk limb, comprises of two discrete elements. The CICA will have regard to the following: was the risk usual or unusual for the injured person? In other words would the injured person have received training in this area and/or would they normally come across this situation as an integral part of their duty? The second part examines the gravity of the situation; the imediacy of the threat to the public; and how dangerous it was to neutralise or extinguish the threat or danger.
Some real examples may help us to understand the CICA's reasoning: a police officer was successful with this application to the CICA for compensation when he chased a bank robber across a busy road at night and was hit by a vehicle which was unrelated to the robbery. The CICA determined that the officer was taking a justified risk by running across the road and that the seriousness of the offence made the risk justifiable. A police officer gave chase after a suspect ran off from a stolen car. The chase was along the sea forshore and the officer slipped and fell, injuring his back. The ground underfoot was very uneven and slippery and the officer had not anticipated the ground to be so wet and so slippery. The CICA found in favour of the officer, in that he had been taking an exceptional risk.
In another case, a police officer, of the drugs squad, accidentally stabbed himself with a hyperdermic needle when searching a vacant premises for drugs. The CICA held that as the search was not under any time constraint, nor was the officer under pressure, the situation was not an exceptional risk. The officer was highly trained in safe methods of searching for evidence and the search did not have to be executed quickly.
Please telephone freephone 0800 169 3683. The call is free and so is the advice.