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Compensation claims brought by children, victims of abuse and vulnerable personsMalcolm Johnson & Co. specialises in compensation claims involving the abuse of children and vulnerable persons. These include claims involving the deliberate use of violence against adults and children, as well as cases of neglect. Malcolm Johnson helped set up the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers in 1998, an organisation that helps direct survivors of abuse to experienced compensation lawyers. Malcolm is one of the authors of the leading legal textbook in this area, “Child Abuse Compensation Claims” published by the Law Society. He lectures in this area and has written a number of articles for various legal publications. He has also gone on television and radio to talk about his work. We act for a number of survivors of abuse, including
Can we take on your claim?We cannot guarantee to take on your claim. Compensation claims in this area of the law are very difficult and expensive, and they take a great deal of time to prepare properly. We are compensation lawyers and so we focus on getting a monetary result for you. Sometimes a Defendant organisation, such as a local authority will make a formal apology in addition to making a payment of damages and we can discuss this when you come to see us. If you are looking for other forms of redress, we may not be able to help you. Whatever the situation, we will always do our best to refer you to someone who may be able to help. Our first question is going to be whether there is a viable claim for compensation. Many victims of child abuse bring their claims long after the abuse has happened. The law provides for periods of “limitation” or time limits by which claims must be issued in the courts. These limitation rules are complex and we can’t advise you properly until we are able to see you and take a full account of what has happened. Whatever your situation; our advice is always – see a solicitor as soon as possible. The slightest delay can sometimes be fatal to a compensation claim. Our second question is going to be about funding. Some people with limited income and capital are entitled to “public funding.” We have a licence to undertake publicly funded work in these types of claims and we can make an application to the Legal Services Commission on your behalf. If that application is successful, you will be awarded a certificate of public funding, that enables us to carry out limited work for you. However the Legal Services Commission have very strict criteria and they will want to see good evidence that there is a viable case. They will also want to be assured that the case is not going to cost too much. If you are not entitled to public funding, we can consider whether to offer you a conditional fee agreement. Very briefly, this is an agreement where you don’t have to pay us if you don’t win your case. However we won’t be able to pay for your disbursements, for instance the cost of a psychiatric report or the costs of court fees. Also if you lose your case, you may be liable to pay the other side’s costs and these can be considerable. It is possible to insure against the risk of losing a litigation case. We are members of Accident Line, the Law Society approved legal expenses insurance scheme. If your case is eligible for the scheme, we can only offer this type of legal expenses insurance to you. The scheme can cover child abuse compensation claims. If the case is not eligible, then we can try to arrange an alternative legal expenses package for you. In all cases, we check whether a potential client already has legal expenses insurance, for instance a household insurance policy. As you might expect, we do have to invest a great deal of time and effort in bringing these cases to a successful conclusion. Even if a case is publicly funded, we are paid more if you win the case than we are if you lose. This means that we have to think very carefully about whether we can take on a case or not. We are here to find ways round these problems. We have acted and we continue to act for clients with public funding and clients with conditional fee agreements. If for some reason, we can’t enter into a conditional fee agreement with a client, we can try and refer them to another solicitor. Our third question is going to be about how we obtain compensation for you. Victims of child abuse often have a number of different options for making a compensation claim. The following is a list of some of those options:-
We have experience of all of the above types of claims, and we should be able to advise on what is the most appropriate course of action. Different claims are funded in different ways. For instance the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority does not normally award anything for your solicitor’s costs, whereas in a civil claim against a local authority or an individual, you may well be entitled to receive not only your damages but also your costs. At the same time, there is a limited form of public funding available for claims to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. In certain cases, we can offer this type of funding to you. One final point – if you decide you want to consult us, do it as soon as possible. Our RecordWe treat all our clients the same. We also aim to conclude our clients’ claims as quickly as possible. The following are examples of the child abuse compensation claims that we have successfully concluded. St Leonard’s Cottage Homes Group LitigationOur firm co-ordinated the group litigation against the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which concluded in 2003. This litigation involved 62 claimants, who brought proceedings against Tower Hamlets for the abuse that they suffered mainly at St Leonard’s Cottage Homes in Hornchurch Essex and one other home in Basildon between 1961 and 1964. The civil actions followed on from the convictions of two abusers at the Old Bailey as a result of “Operation Mapperton” the Metropolitan Police investigation into Tower Hamlets’ homes. Proceedings were issued on the 31st October 2001 and trial was set for November 2003. By June 2003, a number of offers were made by the Defendant’s solicitors and all the cases were settled by September 2003. Most of the Claimants’ cases were financed by the Legal Services Commission, but there was no deduction out of any of the Claimants’ damages in respect of our firm’s costs for co-ordinating the group action. The group action resulted in a recovery of just under £1.5 million for various Claimants. Ms. HWe were instructed by Ms. H on the 21st September 2005. As a child, during the late seventies and eighties, she was abused by a close family member. Her family had often come to the attention of social services but despite a number of warning signals, nothing effective was done to protect her and the abuse continued. An emergency application for public funding was submitted the day after we saw our client, and this was granted on 10th October 2005. We wrote a Letter of Claim to the Defendant local authority, but due to limitation concerns protective proceedings were issued on 23rd September 2005 and the time for serving those proceedings was later extended. In April 2006, we obtained the claimant’s medical, educational and social services records. We also instructed a consultant psychiatrist to assess the level of damage done to her, and a social care expert to comment on the standard of care shown by the Defendant local authority’s social workers. In early 2006, an offer of compensation (£5,000) was made by the Defendant’s solicitors but this was not accepted. In May 2006, substantive proceedings were formally served on the Defendant local authority and an extension of time for the service of the defence was granted up to the 22nd September 2006. In August 2006, our client decided to accept compensation of £20,000 with no deduction for our costs. We then arranged for that compensation to be placed within a special needs trust so as to protect her receipt of benefits. Ms. H has kindly given her permission for us to talk about her case on our website, although her identity cannot be revealed and certain aspects of her case have been changed. The Association of Child Abuse LawyersFinally we are members of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers www.childabuselawyers.com and we abide by their Code of Practice. |
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