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Laura Connor Solicitor of Thompsons Personal Injury Solicitors recently helped a client receive a Criminal Injuries Compensation Award (CICA) of £125,882.00. 

Our client was employed by Inverclyde Council for approximately 27 years as a Senior Social Support Worker. For the three years before the accident our client worked at the James Watt Court sheltered housing complex where tenants live alone in their own flat. 

On the 5th February 2006 it was reported that a tenant had been causing some nuisance and playing his music extremely loudly, he had been asked by the client’s colleagues to turn the music down and would not do so therefore our client eventually had to go the tenant’s flat as she was the senior staff member on duty; two other staff members accompanied her but waited at front door. 

As the music was so loud our client let herself in and went into the living room to speak with the tenant, when speaking to the tenant he became agitate therefore our client turned to walk out the door when the tenant grabbed her ponytail pulling her backwards, our client fell to the floor and the tenant started punching and kicking her causing fractures to our client’s ribs.

Our client suffered relatively minor physical injuries and the most significant were psychological injuries.  As a result of the psychological injuries this prevented our client a return to any type of employment in the future.  A CICA application was submitted and the civil claim was turned down.  The CICA application went on for four years, during this period an interim payment of £1,000 was made.  The CICA application was finally concluded in early March 2010 when an award of £125,882.00 was made.  This was the initial award so neither a review nor appeal was required.
 
The CICA obtained their own medical evidence from a consultant psychiatrist at Inverclyde Royal Hospital who accepted that all of the client’s mental health problems had been caused by the incident and that she is not fit, nor will she be, to return to any type of employment in the future. 

The CICA accepted also that she would have worked on in full time employment until 65; she was 54 at the time of the incident.  A reduction of 20% was made to the full future loss of earnings claim on the basis that our client had other minor health problems which may have caused her to stop working early.
 
An award of £13,950 was made for the injuries (i.e. for a disabling mental illness, confirmed by psychiatric diagnosis, lasting over five years but which is not permanent) and the remainder was for loss of earnings (past and future). 
 
Our client was delighted with the award and thanked Thompsons for all their help and assistance in dealing with the CICA application.