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Headnote |
Summary of decision
The unusual circumstances of the applicant having been attacked in prison as a consequence of his being a police informer was relevant to the original decision by a Single Member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board to refuse compensation and to the Board in considering his application for an oral hearing. The Board’s refusal to allow such an oral hearing in these circumstances would be quashed.
Facts
The applicant (‘S’) made two claims for compensation in relation to assaults sustained in two separate prisons. The applications were refused by letter on the basis of his previous convictions (pursuant to paragraph 6(c) of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 1990 (‘the 1990 Scheme’)). S applied for oral hearings under paragraph 24(c) of the 1990 Scheme but his applications were refused. In his submissions to the Board S revealed that he had been a police informer and that it was this fact which had led to the two assaults upon him in prison. The Guide to the 1990 Scheme provided that the Board could take account of any attempt made by an applicant to reform himself and would be likely to approach sympathetically an application from someone who had been injured whilst giving assistance to the police notwithstanding that he may have many previous convictions.
In his application for judicial review S submitted that it was clear that the Board member who made the original decision had not taken these matters into account. Consequently the decision not to allow an oral hearing was also subject to challenge.
Held, allowing the application,
(1) The unusual and important circumstance that S was an informer and had been assaulted as a result was necessarily relevant to any reasonable decision maker in the position of the Board member who made the original decision.
(2) The circumstances were so special that it was inevitable that that consideration must have been regarded as relevant to the decision to refuse an oral hearing. If the Board had directed itself correctly it would have concluded that the earlier decision may have been wrong in law. The decision to refuse an oral hearing was accordingly quashed.
Parts of scheme and other legislation referred to in judgment
Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 1990, paragraph 6(c) and 24(c).
Representation
G. A. Morris, (instructed by Edwards Frais Abrahamson) for S.
M. Fordham (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the respondent.
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