R v Secretary of State for Home Department, ex parte C 1999

FACTS:- 

The Applicant was the victim of multiple rapes and sexual assaults by five men at her home. She applied to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which set out a tariff for different categories of injury. There was no separate category for for multiple sexual assaults but the sexual assault (single incident) set out a tariff of £10,000 for non-consensual intercourse by two or more attackers. C submitted separate applications but these were rejected by the Authority because it took the view that the alleged assaults formed a single incident. C challenged the decision, contending that it was unlawful for the Secretary of State to set a single level of award for multiple sex attacks. She also argued that it was unreasonable for the authority to treat the alleged assaults as a single incident.

HELD:-

Nigel Pleming QC sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court said that the Secretary of State had not acted unlawfully in producing the scheme which clearly fell within the statutory framework provided by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995. This was a matter for legislators not the courts.

The scheme also recognised that a single incident could cover non-consensual intercourse by two or more attackers. Thus the term “single incident” necessarily embraced the possibility of more than one assault, by more than one person, in the course of that single incident.

There might be circumstances in which a claims officer could not reasonably conclude that a series of assaults by more than one attacker (perhaps even a single attacker) amounted to a single incident within the terms of the tariff. In the instant case however, the decision maker had not acted irrationally in forming the view that the assaults were a single incident.