Advice on court case please...

[bitzy12]

Just need some advice.

Recently married and 2 days before our wedding we had something very special stolen from us. I'm not going to be specific. The thing that was stolen was possibly the most important thing we needed for our wedding day.

It caused us a great amount of stress and we did manage to get it back however what this person did to us was unreal. They also took a time that should of been very exciting and magical and turned it into anger, stress and kaos.

We have to attend the court case next week and read out our victim support statement. People are asking if we really claiming compensation.

Now I have never been through anything like this before but we have had people say we most definitely should claim.

But claim for what? Stress? The fact that we now want to replace the thing that was stolen?

Do we have to do anything to claim it or will the judge just say wether we get anything in court?

I have no idea, and never even thought about compensation. Our story is quite well known where we live and everyone who is asking me about it is saying to make sure we 'get something out of it' as what we went through was so awful.

Anyone any experience? It was basically a burglary and fraud crime....48 hours before our wedding

No idea but what a horrible thing to have happened. I'm so sorry.

So sorry this happened to you.

Thank you to you both.

I've been looking into it and I don't think we are entitled to anything compensation wise. I didn't see why would be, what was stolen was returned to us. All it has done had caused us stress and worry which isn't anything the court would deem as compensation. Let's just hope the person involved gets what they deserve.

When we were burgled and they eventually caught the burglar (I think he asked for ours to be taken into account) we were awarded a set amount of compensation by the court. We never got our stuff back and insurance had paid out. I asked whether we needed to pay the compensation (which was about £150) back to the insurers (who had paid out £3k). We were told we did not need to as the compensation was for the stress and inconvenience rather than replacement of the items.

So I suspect the judge/magistrates will read your statement and make their own assessment.

A criminal court can't award compensation for "pain and suffering" only the value of items stolen/damaged and not returned.

I should clarify, in a Theft matter

Thanks for that, that clarifies what I thought.

If it has caused some mind of mental injury then you are within your rights to make an application with CICA. It's a Government based organisation who compensate victims of blameless crime.

I'm currently going through claim. They do and can take a long time, which I've found prolongs getting over what happened.
It's been almost 2 years for me now, however in complex cases they give an interim payment.
Hope this helps. x