Speeders Face Levy to Help Crime Victims
MOTORISTS should pay a £5 surcharge on speeding tickets to help raise extra cash for crime victims, Home Secretary David Blunkett has said.
The levy was suggested as part of a major shake-up of the way the Government funds victim support services.
Responsibility for paying criminal injuries compensation to people attacked while at work - including police, health workers and teachers - should be transferred to employers, said a consultation paper.
The existing Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme - which currently pays out £160 million a year - should also stop giving awards to train drivers who have suffered trauma from seeing someone commit suicide by jumping in front of their train, it said.
Under the proposals speeding tickets would go up by £5 to help pay for a new Victims Fund.
More serious motoring offences such as uninsured driving and failure to give driver's details to police would carry a £10 surcharge. Parking fines would be exempt from the new levy.
Other on-the-spot fines, such as being drunk in public or making a hoax 999 call, would also carry the extra charge.
Criminals would also have to pay out - with a suggested £30 surcharge handed to every new prison inmate and everyone ordered to do a community service order - provided the sentencing judge agreed.
Offenders handed a fine would also have to pay extra to the fund - with the consultation paper suggesting levies of £15 to £30 depending on the level of the fine.
All the money raised by the surcharges would go towards setting up schemes to help victims rather than being paid direct to individuals.
Mr Blunkett said: "The effect of crime on the lives of its victims can be devastating.
"A lump sum of compensation alone does not repair this damage, and the current scheme does not enable us to provide the wide range of support needed.
"A victims fund will put more money into services such as practical support, information and advice to victims of rape and sexual offences, road traffic accident victims and those who have been bereaved as a result of crime."
FFS won't they ever give up
But if any1's offended by my remark -