8. Some victims and survivors who gave evidence at our hearings had not brought civil claims against the institutions in which they were abused because they were unaware that they could do so.

8.1. AR-A14 said “I did not make a claim at any point because I have not heard or understood what to do.”^[1]

8.2. AR-A96 said “I had not made a civil claim previously because I had simply tried to forget all that had happened to me and did not want to revisit it. I was not fully aware of the process to make a civil claim and, in any case, I did not want to explore it, but rather try to just forget my experiences.”^[2]

9. Victims and survivors who report allegations of sexual abuse to the police may choose not to bring a civil claim. On the other hand, they may not be aware of the option or know that they should bring one promptly in order to avoid having their claim rejected by the court as being too late.

10. The police do not always actively signpost victims and survivors to seek legal advice about potential civil claims.^[3] This is partly because the police have not seen it as their responsibility to do so, but it also results from a concern that any criminal proceedings against the abusers may be undermined by accusations that the victims and survivors have fabricated allegations to obtain compensation.^[4] AR-A23 said that, at the trial of John Allen in 2014, she was “repeatedly asked whether or not I was lying for money”.^[5]

11. Approaches towards this issue varied between the police forces we heard from. Some forces – such as North Wales Police^[6] and Durham Constabulary^[7] – have no guidance or policies on signposting the possibility of civil claims; whether or not they do so is left to the discretion of individual officers. Other forces – for example Cheshire Constabulary^[8] – train their officers specifically to provide such signposting. Civil claims are not signposted in the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice, which is the official source of professional practice on policing.^[9]

12. Melissa Case, Director of Criminal and Family Justice Policy at the Ministry of Justice, said that the police should inform victims and survivors of their right to claim compensation in the civil courts.^[10] This does not appear to occur at present at a national level. The Inquiry was shown a Ministry of Justice leaflet, produced for victims of crimes, which refers to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority but does not mention compensation in the civil courts.^[11] Similarly, the existence of such a right is not publicised and explained in the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (the Victims’ Code), which came into effect in 2006 and was revised in 2013 and 2015.^[12]