Veronica Cowan explains why the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority is in the dock
The conviction of former nurse and inspector for the Care Quality Commission, Carl Beech, for perverting the course of justice, and fraud goes some way to assuaging the pain he has caused to those whose reputations he so outrageously traduced. But it also exposes the ease with which the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) can be defrauded, triggering a media backlash. The Ministry of Justice body was set up to provide awards to blameless victims of violent crime, but Matthew Scott, a criminal law barrister at Pump Court Chambers, describes it as ‘a fickle and imperfect quango which awards or refuses government compensation to the victims of crime. It almost always gets it wrong: it pays far too little to those genuinely injured, it often refuses to pay anything at all for quixotic reasons, and it sometimes fails to identify fraudsters.’
Uncorroborated claims
A Ministry of Justice spokesman for the CICA said: ‘False claims are rare but if they occur we work closely with the relevant authorities to seek prosecution
