The High Court has refused a challenge by two children to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal’s decision denying them compensation after their father was shot dead in 2005.
In a judgment delivered on 23 February 2024, Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty refused certiorari, the order sought to quash the Tribunal’s decision. She found that the children had not established that the Tribunal exceeded its powers, fettered its discretion, acted unreasonably or failed to give adequate reasons. The judge said she would hear the parties on costs; the judgment does not decide that issue.
The children applied to the Tribunal in March 2011 through their mother. The Tribunal relied on paragraph 13 of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, which permits compensation to be refused where the victim’s conduct, character or way of life makes an award inappropriate. The children argued that the provision should apply only where the victim himself was the applicant, and that they should not lose compensation because of their father’s conduct.
The judge rejected that interpretation. She found that paragraph 13 could apply to dependants as well as to a victim applying on his own behalf. She said this reading was consistent with the Scheme’s provisions on responsibility for injuries and with the basis on which dependants’ claims derive from a deceased person’s rights.
The court considered the Tribunal’s reliance on the father’s previous convictions and a Garda report expressing the belief that the killing was drug-related. The judgment records that he was shot four times at close range and that the gunman escaped in a car later found burnt out. No suspect was prosecuted, and the judgment says there was no specific evidence identifying the killers or establishing their motive.
The judge distinguished paragraph 13 from paragraph 12, which concerns a victim’s responsibility for the injuries. In her view, the evidence did not establish a direct contribution to the shooting sufficient to make paragraph 12 the appropriate basis. But she found that the convictions, the Garda belief and the circumstances of the killing together provided a reasonable basis for the Tribunal’s paragraph 13 decision. The Tribunal had not simply refused compensation because the father had convictions, she said.
The court acknowledged that the children were blameless, but held that their claim under the Scheme derived from the victim’s entitlement. It concluded that withholding an award in these circumstances was not disproportionate or discriminatory. The decision concerns compensation under this Scheme; it does not find that the children were responsible for their father’s conduct.