Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority

3. Mr A complains CICA were wrong in how it treated him, said he was lying and it has wrongly denied him compensation. He says CICA misled the Tribunals Service when he appealed in 2019. He says he has been complaining about these matters since 2011.

4. Mr A says he has had a mental health breakdown as a result of these matters.

5. Mr A wants an apology and the compensation he believes he is entitled to.

6. In 2011 Mr A applied to CICA for compensation for abuse he experienced in the 1990’s. His application was refused and he took this to a Tribunal. On 17 December 2011, the Tribunal upheld CICA’s decision to refuse Mr A compensation.

7. On 13 January 2019 Mr A raised a complaint with CICA about the failure of his compensation claim. CICA issued its final response on 7 February and advised that to appeal the decision he would need to submit an out of time appeal for a judge to decide whether or not to accept it.

8. On 13 February Mr A submitted his appeal. On 21 August the Tribunal decided not to accept the out of time appeal.

9. On 25 June 2022 Mr A raised another complaint with CICA. It issued a response on 2 September. It explained it could not reconsider its claim decision through the complaints process and this can only be done through the statutory processes of review and appeal. Mr A referred his complaint to his MP on 23 February 2023.

10. There was a further tribunal hearing on 21 September 2023 where Mr A’s appeal was refused because he was making a duplicate claim (which it said was against legislation).

12. The Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 (the law) says a person needs to make their complaint to an MP within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to an MP after one year, unless we think there is a good reason to. We have discussed this with Mr A to understand the reasons why he could not come to us sooner. We have also considered the time CICA took to respond to Mr A’s complaint.

13. Mr A became aware of the matters at the heart of his complaint in 2011, when he was first refused compensation. For his complaint about this to be within our time limit, he would have needed to complain to his MP within one year of that time. For any complaint about how CICA was involved in his appeal in 2019, he would have needed to bring his complaint to his MP by 2020. This means that Mr A’s complaint is significantly outside of our time limit.

14. We asked Mr A to tell us the reasons for the delay in taking his complaint to his MP and us. Mr A told us he has a severe head injury that affects him and he cannot carry out day-to-day tasks without help. He told us he also has epilepsy which makes things more difficult for him. He told us that getting things done to a time limit is challenging for him.

15. Within the CICA’s complaints file is the Tribunal Decision notice dated 21 August 2019. This is where Mr A appealed the decision a tribunal made on 17 December 2011 on his CICA claim. The decision notice explains that an appeal should be lodged within 90 days of the decision, but, the appeal was lodged seven years after the decision date. The decision notice also says:

‘By Directions Notice dated 16 April 2019 the appellant was directed to file with the Tribunal no later than 30 June 2019 details of his “extensive and enduring health conditions” together with a report from his GP. The appellant [Mr A] failed to comply with the direction. In the hearing the appellant informed the Tribunal that he had not been well throughout the period 2011-2019, however, the Tribunal noted that in the same period he had made several other applications to the CICA and married his long-term partner.’

16. Mr A referred his complaint to his MP 11 years outside of our time limit. We have considered everything he told us and also evidence from the CICA. We have not seen a strong reason to put our time limit to one side. We understand that Mr A has a head injury and epilepsy that makes dealing with day-to-day tasks difficult without help. It is clear from the evidence that Mr A has been able to make many applications to the CICA between 2011 and 2019, so we cannot see any reason why he could not have brought his complaint to the attention of his MP at that time.

1. We have carefully considered Mr A’s complaint about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). The complaint falls outside of our time limit and we have not seen good reason to put the time limit to one side.

2. We are sorry to hear about the difficulties Mr A has experienced and how this affects him daily.