Jonathan Bridge, the Head of the Abuse team at Farleys Solicitors, was instructed by Client B in relation to an application to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority arising from the injuries she suffered at the Manchester Arena when a bomb exploded on the 22 May 2017.
Our client attended the Ariana Grande concert on the date of the bombing. She was inside the venue when the explosion occurred.
Our client suffered injuries to her leg and her arm. Her hearing was also temporarily affected.
Our client also suffered mental health issues as a result of the bombing. She has and continues to struggle with anxiety and flashbacks. She struggles to travel to locations where there are likely to be large crowds such as the Trafford Centre and she has been unable to return to Manchester City Centre since the bombing. She has received limited therapy to support her recovery.
We advised our client to submit a Criminal Injuries Compensation Claim in respect of each of the bombing. We drafted a detailed statement based on our client’s instructions and submitted it to the CICA with her application.
The CICA initially made an offer of £1000 in respect of the injury to her leg which resulted in scarring. We advised our Client to make an application for a review of this decision, submitting that our client has suffered a serious, mentally disabling injury as a result of the bombing and she should be compensated for both her physical injury and psychiatric injury.
We instructed a psychiatric expert to assess our client’s mental health injuries and the expert diagnosed her with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The expert advised that our client would require at least 36 sessions of therapy and would likely recover from her mental health injuries two years after she had completed the therapy. We submitted the expert’s report to the CICA to support our client’s application for a review.
The CICA then made a second offer of £6,200, on the basis that our client would make a full recovery within 5 years of the date on which the bombing took place. This failed to compensate our client for psychiatric injury which is ongoing.
We again advised our client to appeal this decision on the basis that by the time she has completed the necessary treatment and had a further two years to recover, her mental health injuries would have lasted for more than five years.
A First Tier Tribunal hearing was held by telephone in respect of this issue. Our client was represented by Ariella Jones at the hearing.
At the hearing, Farleys was successful in securing compensation for our client in the sum of over £13,500, which included compensation for the physical injury and psychiatric injury.
If you have suffered physical and/or psychiatric injury as a result of a being the victim of a violent crime, Farleys Solicitors can help you claim the compensation needed to cover the treatment to recover from your injuries and find closure. You can contact Farleys’ specialist team in confidence today on 0330 134 6430 or by completing our online form.