MF v First-Tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber)

Time for a criminal injuries compensation claim may be extended under paragraph 89 of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 only where both limbs are satisfied: exceptional circumstances prevented an earlier application, and the supporting evidence permits determination without further extensive enquiries.

Knowledge of the Scheme does not, on these facts, become exceptional merely because the applicant lacked detailed knowledge of its scope. The applicant’s explanation for delay must be assessed factually, but an appellate tribunal should not interfere with permissible findings of fact or evaluative judgments. A claim requiring substantial medical or factual investigation fails the second limb.

The Applicant sought judicial review of a decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 9 November 2022 dismissing his appeal against refusal of a late claim under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012. He knew of the Scheme because he had previously claimed compensation for a stabbing, but said that he did not know that the domestic abuse he suffered was a crime or was compensable.

The First-tier Tribunal found no exceptional circumstances under paragraph 89(a), and held alternatively that determination would require further extensive enquiries under paragraph 89(b). The central issues were whether those findings involved errors of law and whether the evidence could establish a compensable physical or additional mental injury without extensive investigation.

1. Judicial review dismissed. The First-tier Tribunal’s decision disclosed no error of law.
2. Paragraph 89(a) requires consideration of why the applicant did not apply earlier and whether the circumstances preventing an earlier application were exceptional. The question is one of fact. Ignorance of the Scheme can be relevant as part of the wider circumstances, but it is not a self-contained exceptional circumstance. The Applicant knew of the Scheme and had previously claimed under it. The Tribunal was entitled to reject his evidence that he did not know the domestic abuse was a crime, particularly because he had reported it to the police.
3. The Tribunal was also entitled to conclude that the Applicant could have found out that domestic abuse fell within the Scheme. Lack of knowledge of the Scheme’s detailed provisions was not exceptional on these facts. The Tribunal had considered the evidence of shame and trauma, but was entitled to decide what weight to give it.
4. Appellate restraint was required. The Upper Tribunal was not entitled to substitute its own assessment of the evidence for that of the fact-finding Tribunal. The decision had to be read benevolently and as a whole. No irrationality, procedural unfairness or inadequate reasoning was established.
5. Paragraph 89(b) was independently fatal. The Tribunal was entitled to find that differentiating mental injury attributable to the domestic abuse from pre-existing illness and injury arising from the stabbing would require substantial specialist medical evidence and further investigation.
6. The proposed Level B3 tariff claim also could not avoid paragraph 89(b). There was no evidence of wounds, burns or scalds, or an accumulation of healed wounds. Establishing the alleged assaults, their location, the injuries caused and the required accumulation would itself require further extensive enquiries. The judicial review was therefore dismissed.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): judicial review of the First-tier Tribunal decision dated 9 November 2022 dismissed.
• First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber): appeal against refusal of the late compensation claim dismissed on both limbs of paragraph 89 of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012.