Injury Victims V Celebrities
There has been much coverage in the press about the compensation
paid out to celebrities by News International following the
'hacking' scandal. This has clearly been a disgraceful invasion of
privacy and nobody can have much sympathy for Rupert Murdoch's
company for having to make these payments.
But the amount the payments raises another interesting issue.
That is the comparison between compensation paid to victims of
hacking and that paid to victims of accidents. The latter have been
subject to vilification by politicians, the press and insurance
industry who say that we have a 'compensation culture' which needs
to be dismantled.
So let's look at some of figures that have been reported for
victims of hacking. Jude Law got £130k. In an earlier settlement
his ex, Sienna Miller, accepted £100k. These are to compensate the
victims for injury to feelings etc and not for financial
losses.
According to the most recent Guidelines Personal Injury Damages
such awards would only be received for the most catastrophic of
injuries.
For example, to get an award of £130k you would have to suffer a
moderate brain injury with permanent consequences including
moderate to severe intellectual deficit a personality change, an
effect on sight, speech and senses with a significant risk of
epilepsy and no chance of working.
If you lost the sight in one eye and the other carried a serious
risk of deterioration in the other eye then you might expect £100k
although that is at the higher end. You might get something
approaching £100k for loss of a lung with lengthy pain and
suffering with permanent scarring.
Now you cannot compare the two and I for one would never
begrudge the damages paid to those who endured the invasion of
their privacy. But we also need to get things in perspective before
dismissing other victims as just being part of a culture of looking
for easy money. To get anything approaching the damages paid to
these celebrities you have to have suffered a permanent,
life-changing injury. Those victims need all the support that they
can get rather than constant, negative publicity.
By Steve Cornforth