A challenge brought by the children of a man gunned down on his doorstep in Ballincollig, Co Cork, 11 years ago has been dismissed by the High Court.
The legal challenge was over a refusal by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal to compensate them for the death.
Eddie Cummins was shot four times at close range in the driveway of his home at Ballincollig on August 13th, 2005.
Arising out of his killing, his children, Erica and Eddie, through their mother and the victim's partner, Michelle Cunningham, applied in 2011 to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, which is the State body that compensates victims of violent crime.
One of his children was under two years old and the other had not yet born at the time of their father’s death. At the time of his death, Eddie Cummins had 27 previous convictions.
The tribunal ruled there was not an entitlement to claim compensation due to a provision in the scheme that prevents or reduces an award in circumstances where the victim’s conduct, character or way of life, makes this inappropriate.
After the tribunal refused to pay compensation, the decision was challenged in the High Court.
They submitted that the Tribunal refused to make an award on insufficient evidence and, in particular, a belief held by the relevant garda that the victim’s death was “drug related.”
Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty in the High Court said the children were “clearly blameless victims of this cowardly act.”
She ruled the Tribunal was correct to refuse to compensate the applicants.
The judge said while she extended sympathy to the blameless children of the victim “who died in a cowardly and heartless act at the very doorstep of his home”, she could not agree that the dependents of a criminal who probably died as a result of his criminality should be compensated by the State for that injury to him.
“This is not to say that he deserved it and is very far from that, a distinction I want to make clearly,” she said.
She added: “It is a much more nuanced but important principle: those who engage in crime do so knowing the risks. It is not a disproportionate or discriminatory measure to provide that his dependents are not entitled to compensation from the taxpayer if he dies as a result of his criminality, as this would not be in keeping with the State’s policy of preventing crime and deterring people from committing crime.”
The judge said this was the only situation in which they could not receive compensation.
“The injury in question was related to the criminal convictions and conduct of their father, so as to render it inappropriate to compensate him,” she said, and by extension the children.
