Criminal Injury Compensation: Solicitor sets out in a Q & A the procedure to calculate the amount you can claim for lost income
Criminal injury compensation claim question
As a result of the trauma of a sexual abuse trial my self employed business went bust. I am in my twenties now and currently declared unfit to work and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority are looking at evidence to decide how much lost income I should be awarded.
How much criminal injury compensation should I receive for lost income?
Criminal injury compensation solicitor response
Regretfully it is very difficult to estimate how much criminal injury compensation for lost income you should receive as a result of your abuse, but you will find the procedure below helpful to enable you to estimate your loss.
1. Consider the medical evidence available to determine the duration of your lost income
You have mentioned that you are currently declared unfit to work – presumably this is by your GP or other NHS consultant. It is likely that the CICA will have a medical report on its file describing what your psychological injuries are with an estimate of their effect into the future.
For example – imagine your medical report concludes that you have been unable to work for three years and as from today’s date your are unable to work for a further 10 year period. This will form the basis of your lost income claim.
2. Past lost income as part of your compensation claim
Past lost income is relatively easy to calculate. This will be the amount of net income (income after tax and national insurance) you can show that you would have earned in the three year period.
The overall figure is subject to a slight increase to reflect inflation.
3. The multiplier for criminal injury compensation future lost income claims
The multiplier is the number that you use to determine how much annual income should be multiplied by.
Earlier I gave an example of inability to work for 10 years – but it is not as simple to multiply annual lost income by 10. If this was to happen you would receive a lump sum now which could be invested and so in 10 years time you would receive more money than had you earned the money on an annual basis.
The CICA sets out multiplier tables in an annex of its tariff scheme allowing a calculation to be made as to loss.
Criminal Injury Compensation Claim
4. Annual lost income used to calculate your overall criminal injury compensation UK claim
Annual lost income is also known technically as the “multiplicand”. It is the average annual income you would have earned over the 10 year period (using the above example).
As you are self-employed it is likely that your business would have become more and more successful as years go by and as such profits would increase. A prediction can be made by an accountant or from analogy with other businesses in your area of trade and geographical location.
This analogy will show how profits are likely to have increased and based upon this model an average annual income figure could be calculated.
This figure is then adjusted to take inflation into account and multiplied by the multiplier to give the loss for 10 years.
See our criminal compensation article explaining other criminal injury compensation calculations
5. Assistance from UK criminal injury compensation lawyers
If you find that medical evidence supports a long term period of absence from work and the CICA do not offer you a fair sum – we recommend you speak to a criminal injury compensation solicitor to calculate how much you should receive.
In claims of psychological trauma – the medical evidence must be sufficient – obtaining a consultant psychiatrist report will often convince the CICA why much larger lost income claims can be justified. In addition – the medical evidence is likely to increase the amount of criminal compensation you can claim for physical and psychological injury.
See our finding a criminal injury lawyer article or our free online solicitor free help options to take advantage of our online and telephone help – you can ask a question or arrange a free callback to discuss your potential criminal compensation claim.
