London Criticized for Bomb Compensation

Monday September 26, 2005 6:01 PM - By BETH GARDINER Associated Press Writer - source The Guardian

LONDON (AP) - Compensation payments to London bombing victims and their families have been too slow, leaving the wounded and bereaved struggling to cover bills and mortgage payments, lawyers said Monday.

As Prime Minister Tony Blair promised checks were coming soon, many also worried that caps on the amounts paid by a government compensation program are too low and will make it difficult for some victims to afford artificial limbs and other medical expenses.

Fifty-two victims were killed along with the four bombers who struck three London Underground trains and a bus on July 7. Some 750 people suffered injuries, 350 of them serious enough to require hospitalization, police said. Some lost limbs or suffered severe burns.

Lawyer Colin Ettinger said the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, a government body, was moving too slowly to give interim help to victims.

"They're struggling," he said in an interview. "Their sick pay from work may be running out and they've got mortgage repayments to meet, so access to money is quite an urgent issue. ... They need access to funds so that they can keep themselves going."

Caps on payments - $885,000 per person - will leave many victims and families struggling, he said.

Attorney Daniel Easton said many of the cost caps for specific injuries had been set far too low.

The Australian government had paid to fly his client, Australian Jodi Ayre, 26, home after she suffered a ruptured eardrum in the bombing of a No. 30 bus near Russell Square, he said. Australia also covered her medical costs and other expenses, but she is still waiting to find out how much she'll get from the British authority.

Ettinger said about half of his 14 bombing clients were relatives of those killed in the attacks. The rest were survivors whose injuries ranged from minor wounds to the loss of both legs. One man suffered serious injuries when fragments of another person's bone became embedded in his leg, the lawyer said.

And, he said, "they've all got terrible psychological trauma."

Blair said Sunday that while the compensation authority operated independently, "I think what is going to happen now is that over the next couple of weeks those payments are going to be made."

The compensation authority said it had not yet made any interim awards because it was waiting for police reports needed to document cases. The reports for those who have already filed claims began arriving Thursday, and the agency will begin making interim payments within 10 days, it said in a statement.

"This is taxpayers' money we're responsible for administering and we have to make sure we have all the information so we can make an assessment of the expense," said the spokeswoman, declining to be identified in keeping with government policy. "It's just not possible for us to get an application from someone and make a payment the next day."

She said the body had no authority to raise the caps, which were set by Parliament.

Some victims' stories have been harrowing.

Martine Wright, who lost both legs above the knee in the bombing of a Circle Line train outside Aldgate station, is struggling to walk again on prosthetic legs.

The high-tech artificial limbs she hopes to buy cost $35,000 and are not covered by Britain's public health system. She also needs to buy a ground-floor apartment and renovate her mother's apartment, where she will stay temporarily, she said. "Money is a huge worry for me at the moment when all I should be thinking about is walking again," she told The Guardian newspaper. "It is nearly three months on and they (the government) need to sort out how they are going to take care of us."