CICA Criminal Injuries Compensation Claims.
Notifying the police about a criminal assault.
Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2008
CICA Criminal Injuries Compensation Claim. Telling the police.
It is very important that you notify the police when the incident happens. It is not sufficient to do this days or even weeks later. If you tell the police immediately about the assault, they may be able to effect an arrest and bring the assailant to justice. Also, if the police can apprehend the wrongdoer, they they might just prevent another person being injured.
The CICA expect you to make a formal report of the incident. The police will give you a crime refence number. This is the starting point of making a criminal injury compensation claim. Without a crime refence number, you will be unable to make a claim. There may be certain circumstances when it is was not practical to tell the police, for example, you were so badly injured that you lost consciouness or had to be rushed to hospital in a life threatening situation. The CICA will always take into account reasonable circumstances.
If you make a report to the police just to enable you to make a criminal injuries compensation application, then the CICA are most unlikely to award compensation. In certain circumstances, reports can be made to someone in authority in a school, prison, care-home, psychiatric hospital or secure unit. The authorities will then have to investigate the matter and produce a formal report for the CICA to examine. But usually, it is the police who should be told about the incident.
If you refuse to co-operate with the police in bringing the attacker to justice, then it is very unlikely that your application for criminal injury compensation will be successful. If you were willing to support an investigation and trial, but the police and or the CPS drop the case, then you most probably would be successful. The CICA will consider each application on its merits if you initially refuse to assist the police in the investigation, but then go on to assist and help the police with their investigations.
Your claim will most certainly fail if you refuse to assist because you feared reprisals or had been threatened by your attacker to stop you bringing them to justice. The CICA expects you to be fearless in assisting the criminal justice system.