IMX v Peter Mark Bicknell

In assessing damages for historic childhood sexual abuse, the court should separate compensation for the assaults themselves from compensation for their longer-term psychiatric consequences. The claimant’s adult relationship with the abuser, or financial and emotional support provided by the abuser, does not mitigate damages or permit gifts to be set against loss. The relevant focus is the claimant’s injuries and their consequences. A claimant seeking compensation for future labour-market disadvantage need establish a real, identifiable risk of disadvantage; proof on the balance of probabilities is unnecessary. Damages may be assessed broadly where precise calculation is impossible, but each distinct head of loss must be proved.

The claimant sought assessment of damages following summary judgment for assaults committed by the defendant, her stepfather, when she was aged between eight and 12. The defendant had been convicted of the assaults in related criminal proceedings. The claim included general damages for the abuse and psychiatric injury, future treatment, educational detriment, loss of earnings and future labour-market disadvantage.

The defendant contended that his financial and emotional support during the claimant’s adult life should be treated as compensation or mitigation. The court also considered the evidential basis for the claimed educational and employment losses and the appropriate test for future labour-market disadvantage.

1. Assessment of general damages. Compensation was awarded separately for the sexual assaults and for the long-term psychiatric consequences. The assaults warranted £30,000, having regard to the claimant’s age, the duration and multiplicity of the abuse, the abuse of trust, penetration and immediate physical consequences. The psychiatric consequences warranted a further £30,000. The total award for general damages was therefore £60,000.
2. No mitigation by the abuser’s later conduct. There was no authority supporting mitigation of general damages by financial or emotional support given by an abuser, or setting gifts against the victim’s losses. Any beneficial effect of such support could be reflected only insofar as it reduced the claimant’s actual long-term injury. The evidential focus remained on the claimant and the consequences of the abuse, not the abuser’s conduct or intentions.
3. Future treatment and past earnings. The recommended psychological treatment was awarded in full, together with reasonable travel costs, producing £88,815. Educational detriment was not proved: the evidence did not establish that the claimant would probably have obtained a university degree. Past loss of earnings was proved through the claimant’s evidence and the psychiatric evidence and was assessed at £30,000.
4. Future labour-market disadvantage. The court accepted that the claimant’s continuing psychological vulnerability created a real risk of disadvantage compared with otherwise comparable applicants, even if treatment succeeded and she returned to work. The risk did not need to be established on the balance of probabilities. The claimed £25,000 was reasonable.
5. The total damages award was £203,815. Interest was awarded at 2% on general damages from the claim form and on loss of earnings for ten years, taking account of the gradual accrual of loss and the delay in bringing the claim.

First-instance assessment of damages following summary judgment entered by Master Davison on 22 February 2024. The judgment was amended by order dated 23 September 2024 to correct an arithmetical error and remove an erroneous paragraph reference.