We acted for the parents of a young man (aged 13) who suffered a horrific injury in March 2012. Briefly, he and three other boys were returning from their school in Swindon. They began to play around and one of the boys threw a stick at our client which, unfortunately, hit his left eye, leaving him with very little (if any) vision out of this eye. This had not been a deliberate act by the other boy but a tragic accident.
The only realistic legal remedy for our young client was for him to make a claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) – this is a statutory scheme which has been set up by the Government to compensate victims of an assault. We felt that he fell within the terms of this scheme. An application was filed but unfortunately they refused to make an award of damages to him as they were not convinced that he had suffered a criminal injury. We disagree and helped him with his appeal against this award. The good news is that the CICA then revised their original decision and agreed to compensate him for his eye injury.
On this occasion, we acted for our young client on a pro bono basis as we wanted him to keep this award in full.
S J Edney solicitors obtained damages of £32,000.00 for this client in 2013