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Headnote |
Summary of decision
The applicant was injured when he was unintentionally run down by a motorcyclist. The application for compensation to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board was disallowed under paragraph 11 of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 1990. Upon judicial review, the court agreed that the claim was precluded by paragraph 11 of the Scheme and dismissed the Application. Upon appeal, the Court of Appeal held the wording of paragraph 11 was clear and that there was no need to apply a purposive approach to its construction.
Facts
The Applicant (‘M’), a boy aged 10 sustained serious head injuries when he was struck by a motorcycle whilst walking along an access track to a sewerage works. The motorcyclist (‘B’) was convicted of dangerous driving and driving whilst uninsured. M made a claim to the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (‘MIB’), which was rejected as the accident did not occur on a public road and was therefore outside the scope of the MIB’s scheme. M applied to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (‘The Board’) for compensation; his application was disallowed on paper on the basis that his injury was not “directly attributable to a crime of violence”. At a hearing before a full Board, evidence was heard that B had not driven deliberately at M; the application was therefore rejected pursuant to paragraph 11 of the Scheme; “Applications for compensation for personal injury attributable to traffic offences will be excluded from the Scheme, except where such injury is due to a deliberate attempt to run the victim down”. M sought judicial review of the Board’s decision, which Ognall J refused. M appealed that decision on the grounds that the 1990 Scheme should be construed not as a statute but in a broader purposive way. It was argued that the purpose of the Scheme was to compensate victims where no policy of insurance covered the offending accident and where the MIB declined responsibility. M pointed to an inconsistent history of the application of similar provisions in the earlier versions of the Scheme and to Home office advice which had been issued in 1980 to the Board which suggested that in cases where there was no third party insurer or possibility of an MIB claim, then the Board could consider a grant of compensation.
Held, dismissing the application
(1) Ordinarily the true meaning of a public policy or Scheme is for the Court to decide. Misinterpretation by the policy maker of its own policy or by the body charged with implementing it, render the decisions of either defective in the same way as would ignoring it: R v CICB, ex parte Schofield (1991) 2 All ER 1011; R v CICB ex parte Ince [1973] 1 WLR 30; Gransden & Co Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [1986] JPL 519 considered.
(2) Where the policy or Scheme is not as clearly or fully expressed as it might be there is a spectrum of meaning, and a court should respect the policy maker’s evaluation of it unless it is irrational: R v Monopolies and Merger Commissions ex parte South Yorkshire Transport [1993] 1 WLR 23, HL followed. Unless there is ambiguity, the policy maker is in no better position than the court to determine the meaning of an ordinary word.
(3) The fact that the Scheme has its origin in the royal prerogative rather than statute does not of itself invite a looser form of construction: CCSU v Minister of Civil Service (1985) AC 374 considered.
(4) The words of the exclusion in paragraph 11 are broad and clear, referring to traffic offences without qualification according to where caused or whether compensation was otherwise recoverable, and expressly exempting from the exclusion traffic offences involving deliberate attempts to run victims down.
(5) The fact that the Board may have given a different meaning to the exclusion in the past pursuant to advice from the Home Office in 1980 cannot determine its true meaning.
Parts of scheme and other legislation referred to in judgment
Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 1990, paragraph 11
Offences Against the Person Act 1861, section 35
Criminal Justice Act 1988, section 110(7)
Road Traffic Act 1988, section 6(8)
Cases referred to in judgment
R v CICB, ex parte Webb (1987) 1 QB 75
R v CICB, ex parte Schofield (1991) 2 All ER 1011
CCSU v Minister of Civil Service (1985) AC 374
R v Wandsworth LBC, ex parte Mansoor (1997) QB 953
Cozens v Brutus [1973] AC 854
R v Spens (1991) 93 Cr App R 194
R v Paul [1998] Crim LR 79
R v CICB ex parte Ince [1973] 1 WLR 30
Gransden & Co Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [1986] JPL 519
R v Monopolies and Merger Commissions ex parte South Yorkshire Transport [1993] 1 WLR 23, HL
R v Brent LBC ex parte Awua [1996] AC
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