By Nicola Boden
More than 120 victims injured in the July 7 bombings are still waiting for full compensation two years on from the attacks, it was revealed yesterday.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) has not yet resolved a fifth of claims made in relation to the attacks in London in 2005 which killed 52 and injured thousands.
A spokesman conceded 126 of 614 cases are still outstanding, amid claims survivors had been forgotten and were struggling to deal with such an impenetrable, unwieldy compensation system.
On the eve of the bombings’ second anniversary lawyer Thelma Stober, who lost her leg in the explosion on the Circle line train at Aldgate, said: “We are the forgotten people.”
The 35-year-old has received £33,000 – the maximum value for the loss of a limb below the knee – but is still trying to get compensation for the rest of her injuries.
She told the Evening Standard: “I have got to the stage where even though I am a lawyer and I am used to dealing with large documentation and complicated forms I am so fed up with it.”
She added: “I would have been better off if I had been knocked down by a bus or a car.”
CICA dismissed the idea it had been waiting on cases for two years as “very misleading” and said applications were even now still coming in.
A spokesman said: “There are 126 out of 614 outstanding according to the latest figures we have but we are still receiving applications.
“We have had 47 so far this year and seven in the past week. To give the impression that the CICA has been waiting on cases for two years is very misleading.”
He added that the outstanding cases were the most serious ones which involved complicated loss of earnings calculations and working out how much future care will be necessary.
“They are really not delays from our perspective. We have been in touch with every single outstanding applicant in June to say this is what we still need from you… We could not be doing any more,” the spokesman added.
He conceded there was a “certain inevitability” about some of the delays but said the authority was always looking how to make the process as easy as possible.
It has given out £4.2 million in total since July 7 and £1.2 million in the past year alone which has seen it resolve 91 cases, he added.
July 7 campaigner Rachel North, who survived the Russell Square Piccadilly Line bombing which killed 26 people, wants the system improved for all victims seeking compensation.
She said: “It is not just the July 7 victims who struggle with bureaucracy in the face of disaster. The CICA is an unwieldy, bureaucratic system.
“I hope that by raising this issue, people who have the power to make things easier for victims of crime might look at how they can make it more supportive and smooth-running.”
People struck by disaster were being asked to fill out complex application forms at a hugely challenging time for them and needed more support, she argued.
She said: “It is a very complicated system – and it is the system and process itself, not the people working it. It is a very weighty and difficult way of working because people have to prove that they are a victim repeatedly and endlessly.
“It is very upsetting for them because people want to get closure. The criminal injuries money is not supposed to make everything right again because it cannot possibly do that but it is supposed to be an expression of support.
“You do not tend to feel very supported if you are still waiting to get something that you would have thought at the time would be administered in months rather than years.”
