******************************************************
The Criminal and Law Enforcement Injuries Compensation (CLEIC) Boards paid out $11.96 million to victims suffering from criminal or law enforcement injuries or their dependants for the year 2004/2005, according to the boardsˇ¦ latest annual report.
A spokesman for the Social Welfare Department (SWD) said today (September 10) that these payments were made in 430 new and 285 review cases.
The largest single payment of the year was paid to the victim of a police-criminal shoot-out. The net amount of law enforcement injuries compensation paid to this case was $2,430,515 after deducting the $55,620 interim Criminal Injuries Compensation already paid. The last time that a law enforcement injuries compensation case was approved was in 1999.
On the other hand, the boards received 563 new applications for criminal injuries compensation during the year, compared with 637 in the preceding year.
Among them, 458 were related to assault or wounding; 78 to robbery, theft or burglary; 16 to homicide, murder or manslaughter; five to injuries caused by falling objects and four to rape or sexual assault.
Regarding the source of applications, 360 were referred by the Police, 124 directly submitted by the victims or their families, and 74 lodged as a result of the outreaching service by the CLEIC Secretariat, the spokesman said.
Non-contributory and non-means tested, the CLEIC is designed to provide ex-gratia payments to persons (or to their dependents in cases of death) who are injured, disabled or killed as a result of a crime of violence, or by a law enforcement officer (which means any police officer or other public officer on duty) using a weapon in the execution of his duty.
Ends/Saturday, September 10, 2005
Issued at HKT 13:00
NNNN
