Legal history made by compensation claim
A FORMER taxi driver has made legal history by winning the right to make a compensation claim after his life was ruined by a false rape allegation.
Clive Bishop, from Somerset, was arrested in a pre-dawn raid in 2007 in front of his wife. Some months later, teenager mother Kirsty Palmer admitted that she had made up the allegation, following overwhelming evidence collected by Mr Bishop.
The cost of the case, including the impounding of his car, the strain of keeping the case secret to avoid prejudicing police action against his false accuser, and the loss of a second income because he believed he could no longer pick up single females, led Mr Bishop to initiate the compensation claim.
Palmer was jailed for 10 months and Mr Bishop was to take out a successful civil action against her to recover some of the costs from the case, which ran to thousands of pounds. However, when he made a compensation claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, he was refused on the grounds that he had not been a victim of physical violence.
A second compensation claim, with the help of Victim Support, was also rejected, so Mr Bishop used the Citizen’s Advice Bureau to find a solicitor willing to make an appeal. The tribunal found in favour of his eligibility to make a compensation claim.
“I still can’t believe I’ve made legal history,” he said. “It feels like I’ve spent the last two-and-a-half years fighting to prove my innocence, time and time again.”