Compensating Child Abuse in England and Wales

A detailed commentary on the legal principles governing compensation for the harm occasioned by child abuse.

Paula Case (Author)

9780521864022, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 March 2007

336 pages
23.5 x 16.1 x 2.4 cm, 0.667 kg

Providing a detailed analysis of the legal principles in England & Wales, this book looks at governing compensation claims for the lasting trauma caused by child abuse. Its pages discuss the merits and demerits of different forms of action as mechanisms for imposing liability for abuse, how compensable psychiatric damage can be proved and how the law deals with complex issues of duty of care, causation and extending limitation periods in the context of abuse cases. Whilst a substantial portion of the book deals with civil claims by the abused for the psychological harm caused by the abuse, coverage also extends to litigation by other parties involved directly or indirectly in abuse allegations. Also included is a significant comparative element, drawing upon jurisdictions such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as a means of speculating how our own legal system might develop.

1. Law, psychiatry, society and child abuse
2. Classifying abuse as a civil wrong
3. Litigation against the accuser
4. Damage, causation and quantum
5. Limitation periods.

Subject Areas: Torts / Delicts [LNV], Family law [LNM]