Shreena is mean

[shreena]

I heard a British victim of the Mumbai attacks on the radio this morning talking about how how he was not given any financial compensation.  He comes across a lot better in this article than he did on the radio (in my opinion) but, while I agree that there seems to have been a slightly horrifying lack of co-ordination, particularly when it came to

Comments

[robert_jones]

I agree with you. In fact, I don't really understand the argument for giving victims of terrorist attacks compensation in excess of the victims of other attacks, or indeed the victims of accidents. Unless, I suppose, you wanted to argue that the specific terrorist attack was preventable but the government, by its negligence, failed to prevent it.

[shreena]

I'm not sure if they do get compensation in excess of victims of other attacks. I originally thought this but, having looked at the stuff on here - http://www.cica.gov.uk - it rather sounds like victims of all crime can get compensation and it doesn't sound like this varies according to the circumstances of your attack. But they are a tad vague in places.

I think the idea behind compensation for victims of crimes within the UK is, indeed, that the government failed to prevent the crime.

[robert_jones]

But I think the victims of the 7/7 attack received compensation in addition to what they were entitled to under CICA?

I don't think the idea is that the government failed to prevent the crime, otherwise the amounts ought to be in line with civil compensation, which they are not. I think it's intended as an ex gratia sympathy payment.

[shreena]

You could be right - I'm not sure. A quick google doesn't turn up anything except for CICA, but I do seem to remember something around that time about additional compensation.

The whole idea of a "sympathy payment" is somewhat bizarre!

[vampire_kitten]

"I remember even thinking I might get a call from Gordon Brown!"

is a bit bizarre. As is

"I didn't expect any special treatment. But we were in a terrorist attack! No one came and said: 'Don't worry, your Dad's on the way.'"

Clearly he did expect special treatment.

Mostly the feeling I get from this article is it is a completely misplaced appeal. Surely the point is conditions for injured/disabled people in Britain is far less than ideal, surely we should have a system in place to ensure such people has all they need, rather than waah, fix my special case right now.

[shreena]

Yes, basically. If the state is not giving him enough for his needs, surely that would be the case for all disabled people? And that may well be right, I'm not sure. I have a feeling that his 2-5 million pound expectation is rather too high, though.

[vampire_kitten]

2-5 million for lifetime care, including equipment and medical costs would be too low... but then most of these costs should be cover by the NHS anyway, so I'm not sure why it is he needs the money. Is he having difficulty accessing the support that is theorectically there? While I'm heard a lot of shit things about disabled support for mental health conditions/invisable conditions, the cover for conditions that are blatently obvious like spinal injury I thought were pretty good.

[shreena]

A lot of it seemed to boil down to the fact that other patients in his ward had similar sums of money.

I assume that it could cost quite a lot to renovate his house to make it suitable but, surely, nowhere near 2-5 million? He was pretty unclear on the radio about what he needed that sum for and his campaign website is no clearer.

[editor]

Shouldn't compensation come from the Pakistani government?

[shreena]

No, generally governments are not required to compensate victims of crimes committed by their nationals. Many countries choose to compensate the victims of crimes committed within their country, though, but this crime was obviously not in Pakistan.

[editor]

I didn't mean "required", I just meant if you're looking for a government to hold accountable it would seem to me the authorities who "allowed this to happen" aren't British or Indian.

[shreena]

I don't think it's reasonable to think that governments can control what their nationals do in other countries. It's not up to them to do law enforcement in other countries.

[hairyears]

The British government pays it's wheelchair-bound citizens health benefits, disabled living allowance, and grants for the conversion of homes and places of work - regardless of the cause of disability. As a British Citizen, this individual is entitled to all of that, and would be fairly entitled to whatever payments - however inconsistently-calculated - that HMG chose to disburse in respects of some crime or disaster happening on British soil

[avilacain]

Dear,You could be get international faff where one country is being held accountable for crimes committed in another country that were not illegal in the country being held accountable. Did that make sense?