Criminal Injuries Compensation

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) on securing this debate, and on his powerful and personal speech. It is an honour to follow the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who was eloquent and forceful.

The criminal injuries compensation scheme is an important fund of last resort for many victims of crime who cannot seek compensation through litigation. In the 17 years that I was a barrister, before I was elected last year, I represented many victims of crime at its tribunal. I saw the difference that it could make, but also the limitations and restrictions imposed on the scheme in 2012, which seemed more about saving money than ensuring that victims got compensation for the harm that they had suffered.

I rise to raise a specific concern related to a feature of the scheme that I think is indefensible, and one that the courts have sought to temper. Ultimately, the scheme itself should be changed so that it has a legally sound and consistent basis, and so that it makes sense. It may come as a surprise to many listening that the criminal injuries compensation scheme applies a different legal test from that applied in our criminal courts when it comes to consent.

Unlike our criminal law, the criminal injuries compensation scheme does not recognise that some people cannot legally consent. According to annex B, paragraph 2(d), only those who does not “in fact” consent can receive compensation. That means that if a victim says yes to sexual activity, even when under the age of 16, they are taken to have consented. A child abused or exploited over many years, who knows no better than to agree when an abuser proposes sexual contact, will not be taken to be a victim of a crime of violence because they consented.

If the House wants to be horrified by a legal principle that is still good law, it should read the decision of the Court of Appeal in a case called August from 2000. In that case, a 13-year-old boy, described by the then Lord Chief Justice in the criminal proceedings as “already corrupt”, was paid for sex by a 53-year-old man, but was held not to have been a victim of a crime of violence because he had allegedly consented.

It is true that in the years since the case of August, the courts and tribunals have sought to narrow the principle a bit. A few years after, the Court of Appeal found—some may consider unsurprisingly—that submission is not “real consent” and, in another case, it directed a focus on the applicant’s “relative vulnerability”, “subservience” and “lesser responsibility” as relevant factors, though many may be surprised that any responsibility in those circumstances was found. Far more recently, the Court ruled in the case of RN vs. CICA that sexual abuse causing non-physical injury is included within the scheme. However, the very fact that these sorts of workarounds have had to be introduced shows the indefensibility of the underlying principle. We cannot, and should not have to, rely on tribunals to apply legal rules creatively to seek to achieve just outcomes.

I understand that the Conservative Government left us with the public finances in tatters and public services on their knees, and I understand the concern about expanding the number of victims who might be eligible for compensation, but I hope that the Government will consider this clearly inconsistent approach between our criminal law and the law when it comes to compensating victims, and fix it.