My friend has been assaulted
Advice
You should: -
- Call the Police and report it
- Please note that not all injuries present themselves immediately, they may feel fine at the time but start to suffer a few days later, symptoms may be masked by adrenaline and include delayed shock so it’s always better to get checked out at Accident and Emergency, also if it ends in a claim / court prompt medical evidence is key.
You can report an assault on behalf of someone you know. If the incident has recently taken place, it is important to inform the police as soon as possible, providing any details you can obtain. This may mean calling the emergency services on 999, especially if the person is in immediate danger, or if they need urgent medical attention. Alternatively, it might be best to call 101 for a non-emergency.
Any injury may result in a claim, you should try and find witnesses and get their details and wherever possible take photographs of the area, making sure you focus (no pun intended) on the potential reason for the assault. Whether it was a knee-jerk reaction, planned, or fuelled by alcohol etc will all be determining factors.
Please keep a record of who attends you, whether police or medical staff, and what they recommended / prescribed. The more information the better the chance of a potential claim or criminal charge.
How we can help
If appointed we would appoint a medical professional to evaluate their situation, their report will detail any injuries and the general prognosis. The expert’s report will form the basis of any claim and their caseworker will discuss their findings with them. If the attacker can be proven we would seek to work with the police to prevent duplication of reports etc. The police will look at the criminal aspect whilst we would look at the civil side. In effect this means claiming for damages (compensation), obviously this is far easier if they have been found guilty. As part of the compensation claim we would also include specialist costs so that your friend can receive face to face help from our appointed counsellors, physiotherapists etc.
If your accuser is found to be guilty, we would immediately ask the court to freeze any assets and bank accounts to ensure that these could not be diminished in their worth. Our next stage would be to file a claim for damages (financial compensation). If we could attribute the assault to while the attacker was at work (such as an assault whilst in a care home, hospital, school) etc then we would also consider claiming under their insurance.
You can claim damages (compensation) in one of three ways: -
1 - Direct from the attacker
This is preferable as it gives a direct punishment for the crime, you have 3 years to bring a financial claim.
- There is no upper limit of the sum the court could allow;
- You can claim a loss of income (CICA has a 28-week window); and
- the courts prefer his approach as there is no cost to the public purse and is at the direct detriment of your attacker.
2 - Under the Criminal Injury Compensation Authority (CICA)
When claiming from the CICA, the funds would be coming from the public purse, meaning there would be no direct loss to the attacker’s assets. You must also submit your application to CICA within 2 years to bring a claim. You can only claim if you are incapable of working for more than 28 weeks before you can make a claim.
3 - From an employer
If the offence occurred at work, then we may be able to claim off the employer’s insurance, whilst this means that there is little damage to your attacker personally insurance companies have far deeper pockets than individuals.
How we can help
To gain our assistance they would need to open a case, this is done by simply clicking on the link at the top of the page, they will then need to deposit a sum equal to one hour’s usage, upon receipt of these funds they will be assigned their personal caseworker who will telephone them to discuss the matter and make suggestions on how to proceed.
Please note their caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare their details for handling by our legal team and to act as their point of contact, they will also issue them with their Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto their client dashboard. From their dashboard they will be able to manage and view every aspect of their case, upload documents, images, files etc.