Before talking to our sexual abuse lawyers, many of our adult clients who were subjected to sexual abuse during their childhood thought it was too late to make a claim for compensation.
The normal expiry date for personal injury claims is 3 years. However, if you were sexually abused as a child, there is no time limit to bring a compensation claim. This change in the law occurred in 2016 and is retrospective. This means that if you were sexually abused as a child, you are not time barred from bringing a claim no matter when the abuse occurred. The only condition is that you were abused before you turned eighteen.
The legislation that abolished the time limit for victims of childhood abuse also applies to previously time barred claims. As a result, if you have tried to claim compensation for childhood sexual abuse before but have been told by lawyers or a judge that you were out of time, you can bring your claim again. This does not at present allow victims who have settled their cases or been awarded compensation/damages by a Court to bring a further claim. Our lawyers are presently involved with the Law Society in making recommendations to change this area of the law. However it does remove the limitation period for unresolved cases, which was often a difficult hurdle to overcome.