Stab Injury Compensation Claim Guide

By Stephen Kane. Last Updated 14th June 2023. If you’ve been the victim of a stabbing, you may be entitled to make a criminal injury claim for compensation. Within this guide, we offer advice on when and how you could make a stab injury compensation claim through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA).

Other sections of this guide include a look at potential compensation payouts for stab victim compensation. We’ll also cover the types of damages that could be covered by your criminal injury claim, the time limit for starting proceedings and how a No Win No Fee solicitor could help you with your case.

To learn more about making a criminal injury claim if you’ve been stabbed, you can contact our friendly advisors. They’re available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to help answer your questions and offer free advice. To contact our team, you can:

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Stab injury compensation claims guide

Select A Section:

Criminal Injury Compensation Amounts For Stab Wounds
Damages Your Criminal Injuries Compensation Can Include
My Attacker Escaped – Can I Get Compensation?
Time Limits For Stab Victim Compensation Claims
No Win No Fee Criminal Injuries Solicitors
Advice For Victims Of Stab Injuries

Criminal Injury Compensation Amounts For Stab Wounds

If you’ve been injured in a violent crime and cannot claim against the perpetrator, you could claim for criminal injuries through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). You may seek a criminal injury compensation calculator to value your claim, however, this may not be able to take any special expenses into account.

The CICA awards compensation to claimants in line with the criminal injury compensation tariff found in the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012. These are fixed payouts amount for specific types of injury.

The table below contains figures from the criminal injury compensation tariff.

Injury	Notes	Amount
Mental Injury	A permanent mental injury that is moderately disabling.	£19,000
Mental Injury	A disabling mental injury, as confirmed by a psychiatrist, that lasts for 2-5 years.	£6,200
Chest	An injury that requires a thoracotomy.	£6,200
Abdomen	An injury that requires a laparoscopy or laparotomy with 3 or more organs needing to be repaired.	£6,200
Abdomen	An injury that requires a laparotomy but only one or no organs will need to be repaired.	£1,800
Lung	Both lungs have been punctured	£4,600
Lung	One lung has been punctured.	£1,500
Upper Limb Scarring	Scarring tot he upper limbs that results in a serious disfigurement.	£3,500
Facial Scarring	Facial scarring that results in a significant disfigurement.	£2,400
Eyes	A significant penetrating eye injury to one eye.	£1,000

Before pursuing a claim for compensation through the CICA scheme, you should know that there are situations where you could be eligible to make a personal injury claim for suffering injuries in a criminal attack. As a worker, for example. Your employer will owe you a duty of care, and have a responsibility to take any practical or necessary actions to help ensure your safety.

If you were injured in a criminal attack because your employer failed to take reasonable action to protect you, you could be eligible to make a personal injury claim against them. We have included a table below, featuring figures from the April 2022 edition of the Judicial College Guidelines, to illustrate part of the potential compensation you could be awarded in a successful personal injury claim.

Injury	Notes	Amount
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - Moderate	The person will have made a considerable recovery, any continuing symptoms will not be majorly disabling.	£8,180 to £23,150
Scarring	Multiple and noticeable laceration scars, or a singular scar that is disfiguring to the hands, arms, legs, back or chest.	£7,830 to £22,730
Scarring	Several supificial or one noticeable scar to the hands, arms or legs with a slight cosmetic deficit.	£2,370 to £7,830
Chest Injuries - (d)	A chest injury, such as a penetrating wound that causes permanent damage to the tissue but no long term effect on the lungs function.	£12,590 to £17,960
Knee Injuries - Moderate (ii)	Twisting, bruising or laceration injuries that cause continuous discomfort and aching.	Up to £13,740
Hand Injury - Moderate	Penetrating wounds, lacerations and crush injuries fall under this bracket.	£5,720 to £13,280
Digestive System - (b)(iii)	Penetrating stab wounds, seat belt pressure or industrial laceration cases.	£6,610 to £12,590
Elbow Injuries - Moderate or Minor	This category covers most elbow injuries such as lacerations, fractures and tennis elbow syndrome.	Up to £12,590
Leg Injuries - Less Serious (iii)	Injuries include lacerations, cuts, or simple fractures of the tibia or fibula.	Up to £11,840
Mental Anguish	A fear of death, or reduced life expectancy that last for at least 3 months.	£4,670

To discuss more about either type of compensation, or for more information about making a claim as a stab victim, please speak to one of our advisors.

Damages Your Criminal Injuries Compensation Can Include

If you have been the victim of a stabbing, and you make a successful claim for stab victim compensation, then the settlement you receive will likely be made up of several different types of damages. Above, we considered potential compensation awards for physical harm. It’s also possible to recover financial losses that have been incurred because of the injury. There are some differences in what you can recover depending on whether you pursue a personal injury claim or a claim through the CICA. Generally, you’re able to recover the following costs, though to be sure, contact one of our expert advisors for more information.

Lowered ability to work
Loss of wages or salary (in CICA claims, you have to be absent from work for more than 28 weeks, and you will only receive pay at the statutory sick pay rate).
Cost of hiring a nurse of home help
Medical charges
Travel fees

If you would like to know what types of damages you could claim in your own case, please use the telephone number near the end of this page, and one of our claims team should be able to tell you.

My Attacker Escaped – Can I Get Compensation?

When making a claim through the CICA for getting stabbed, you may wonder, ‘Can I get compensation even if my attacker escaped?’

If you have been injured in a crime of violence, as defined by the CICA, you can still make a claim even if your attacker escapes. However, you will need to ensure that you meet the relevant criteria and can provide sufficient evidence before pursuing a claim through the CICA. The criteria include:

The claim must be made within the relevant time limits (this is generally 2 years).
The incident must have taken place in Scotland, England, Wales or other relevant place (such as a ship registered to one of these countries).
You will need to provide a police reference number to prove that the crime was reported.
You will need evidence that you meet the residency requirements.
Medical evidence regarding your stab wounds and the treatments you needed to receive for them.

The CICA will be able to contact the police for further information relating to the incident.

Our criminal injuries compensation calculator may be able to help you with gaining a clearer idea of how much compensation you could be owed. It will do this by asking you a variety of questions about how you were injured and the injuries you sustained.

Do not hesitate to contact one of our advisors today if you have any further questions about starting a criminal injury claim.

Time Limits For Stab Victim Compensation Claims

If someone were to use a knife to stab you, causing you to be injured, you could make a criminal injury claim through the CICA. However, when making a claim through the CICA for a stab wound scar, you must ensure that you make you claim within the correct time limits.

Generally, there is a 2-year time limit when claiming through the CICA. This usually runs from when you reported the incident to the police. You are expected to do this right away unless you can prove that exceptional circumstances prevented you from doing so. Exceptions could be made to the 2-year time limit; however, you will need to prove that exceptional circumstances stopped you from being able to start your claim within this timeframe.

Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority claim

If you were under the age of 18 when the incident happened, and the incident was reported to the police, but no claim was made, you will have 2 years from your 18^th birthday to claim unless exceptional circumstances apply. If you did not report the incident to the police, you will have 2 years from when you do report the incident to the police. However, you will need to prove that exceptional circumstances prevented you from reporting the incident to the police right away.

Do not hesitate to contact our advisors today to see if you could make a claim for getting stabbed in a crime of violence. They could answer any questions you may have about criminal injury claims.

No Win No Fee Criminal Injuries Solicitors

When making criminal injury claims through the CICA, solicitors from our panel could help you gather evidence and start a claim. If you are concerned about funding solicitor fees, you should know that the solicitors on our panel can all offer their services on a No Win No Fee basis.

This means that you’ll only pay your solicitor a success fee if you are awarded compensation. The fee they deduct from your compensation is capped under the Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013 to avoid you being overcharged.

You also will not have to pay an initial fee upfront to begin using the services of a solicitor, and if your claim fails, you won’t need to pay your solicitor at all.

If you would like to know more about No Win No Fee, speak to our advisors to arrange a free consultation.

If you have been the victim of a knife crime and have suffered a knife injury, then we can likely help you to make a compensation claim. Call 0161 696 9685 today, and explain your situation to one of our claims team, they will give you some solid legal advice on what to do next.

Our team will assess your claim.

We will the process your claim for you.