Payment of compensation for criminal injuries3

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 ofF1 pecuniary loss which has been or may be suffered by him as a result of the victim's death or in respect ofF1 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)