Forums › Ask ACCA Tutor Forums › Ask the Tutor ACCA LW Exams › White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police (1998) followup
- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by
MikeLittle.
- AuthorPosts
- January 24, 2018 at 5:09 pm #432704
Facts:The claimants were police constables on duty for maintaining law
and order during a football match in April 1989 at Hillsborough
Stadium. As a result of overcrowding and the consequent
stampede, 95 people died and hundreds of others sustained
injuries. The policemen on duty, including the claimants, had to tend
to the victims for whom many of them suffered post traumatic stress
disorder. Four of them were on duty at the stadium, and the fifth one
was responsible for stripping bodies and completing casualty forms
at a hospital. Resultantly, they claimed compensation for their
psychiatric injury from the police department.Held: The House of Lords overruled the decision of the Court of Appeal
and rejected the claim. It was established that the claimants were a
‘secondary victim’. A secondary victim is someone whose personal
safety is not threatened, but who suffers psychiatric injury as a result
of either fear for the safety of others or the trauma of witnessing a
harrowing event. In order to succeed in their claim a secondary
victim must satisfy three requirements. First, they must have close
ties of love and affection with the person who suffers injury or death
in an accident attributable to negligence. Second, they must have
been present at the accident or on the scene in its immediate
aftermath. And third, the psychiatric injury must have been caused by
direct perception of the accident or its immediate aftermath and not
upon receiving it secondhand. In this case the claimants did not
meet the first criteria.My questions : Sir weren’t the claimants considered as neighbor in this case?
January 24, 2018 at 8:07 pm #432719But their claim failed because they didn’t satisfy the first criteria ie “they must have close
ties of love and affection with the person who suffers injury or death in an accident attributable to negligence” and the policemen did not have those close ties of love and affectionOK?
- AuthorPosts
- The topic ‘White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police (1998) followup’ is closed to new replies.