Criminal Injuries (Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Order 1977

Payment of compensation for criminal injuries N.I.

3.—(1) Subject to and in accordance with the provisions of this Order, where a person sustains a criminal injury in Northern Ireland on or after the commencement of this Order the Secretary of State shall, on application made to him, pay compensation—

(a) to or for the benefit of the victim; or

(b) where the compensation is in respect of pecuniary loss suffered or expenses incurred, as a result of the victim's injury, by any person responsible for the maintenance of the victim, to that person; or

(c) where the victim has died as a result of the injury—

(i) to or for the benefit of the victim's dependants or any one or more of them; or

(ii) if the victim has no dependants and the compensation is in respect of reasonable expenses necessarily incurred as a result of his death, to the person who incurred those expenses; or

(iii) to any relative of the victim in respect of[F1 pecuniary loss which has been or may be suffered by him as a result of the victim's death or in respect of]F1 any reasonable expenses necessarily incurred or to be so incurred by him as a result of the victim's death; or

(d) where the victim has died otherwise than as a result of the injury—

(i) in respect of pecuniary loss suffered by the victim between the date of the injury and the date of the death, to the victim's dependants;

(ii) in respect of reasonable expenses necessarily incurred by any person in connection with the injury, to that person.

(2) No compensation shall be paid—

(a) unless, on a balance of probabilities, the victim sustained a criminal injury as a result of an act of another person; or

(b) if the victim was, at the time when the criminal injury was sustained, living with the offender as his wife or her husband or as a member of the same household as the offender; or

(c) if the victim fails, without reasonable cause—

(i) to undergo any medical examination which he may be required by the Secretary of State to undergo; or

(ii) to produce or cause or permit to be produced to the Secretary of State any medical records, X-rays or other documents relating to his injury or medical history which the Secretary of State may require to be produced; or

(d) unless the victim, or in the event of his death, one of his dependants, or, in either event, a representative of the victim or such a dependant—

(i) makes forthwith to a constable or, within forty-eight hours from the commission of the criminal injury, to a constable at a police station in Northern Ireland, a report of the commission of the injury; and

(ii) serves on the Secretary of State within twenty-eight days from the commission of the criminal injury, a notice of intention to apply for compensation containing full and true disclosure of all facts, within his knowledge or belief, material to the determination of the application;

or does so within such periods as the Secretary of State considers reasonable having regard to all the circumstances.

(3) Where the victim is an unborn child, paragraph (2)( d)(ii) shall have effect with the substitutiton for the words from “twenty-eight” to “injury” of the words “ three months from the date of birth of the child ”.

Para.(4) repeals 1968 c.9 (NI)

F1 1982 NI 22