Victims of Crime Commissioner: Laws which see sleeping victims overlooked under review

Laws which see victims who are asleep when a crime is committed miss out on compensation, are under review according to Victoria’s Victims of Crime Commissioner.

As reported in the Herald Sun, victims whose homes are being violated by intruders and ransacked while they sleep are being denied crime compensation, with court officials finding they are not as traumatised as those who are robbed while they are awake.

Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies, (above) told 3AW Breakfast he has called for changes to the law, which was instated in 1996.

“This current act is a bit long in the tooth and perhaps the definition of ‘injury’ is a little different then to what it is now,” he said.

“The act is a really clunky piece of legislation that is under review at the moment and we will hopefully come out the other end with a commonsense piece of work.”

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He also clarified that victims of crime who suffer loss of property, not an injury, are to be directed to their insurer, not the government.

“If your house has been burgled that’s what house insurance is for,” he said.

“If the government had to compensate everyone who was the victim of a property crime we’d go belly-up fairly quickly.”