A Co Down man exiled with his family after an IRA punishment-style shooting was unlawfully refused a victim’s payment, a High Court judge has ruled.
Mr Justice Scoffield identified a legal error in the decision to deny compensation to both Peter McCabe and his daughter Jeanitta who witnessed the aftermath of the attack on him.
He also backed their joint challenge to the qualifying guidance for payouts under a scheme for Troubles Related Incidents (TRIs).
Both compensation applications should now be redetermined by a Victims’ Payments Board panel, the judge directed.
Mr McCabe was shot in the leg after masked men entered the family’s home in Newry in September 1990.
A second round was fired at him but deflected off a typewriter he had lifted to shield himself.
The gunmen declared that they were from the IRA and told him he had 24 hours to leave Ireland, the court was told.
Mr McCabe stated he feared being killed if he disobeyed and relocated with his family to Britain.
They lived in exile at bed and breakfast houses throughout England and Scotland before returning to Northern Ireland five years later.
In 2021, Mr McCabe applied to the Troubles Permanent Disability Payment Scheme - set up to provide financial support for those living with physical or psychological injuries sustained as a result of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
His daughter Jeanitta also sought a payout for the trauma she suffered as a 10-year-old child present at the scene of the shooting.
The Victims’ Payments Board, which oversees the scheme, turned down both applications on the basis it was not established to be a TRI as defined by the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019.
Under its guidance, punishment attacks carried out by paramilitary vigilantes may be ineligible for payments if the incidents are not related to the region’s constitutional status or political/sectarian hostility.
The McCabe family challenged the refusal of payments by claiming the Board wrongly interpreted what qualifies as a TRI and created a “hierarchy” of punishment.
Their lawyers argued it had unlawfully focused on finding a single reason for the shooting incident.
Counsel for the Board responded that the father and daughter were deemed ineligible after assessing all available evidence against the relevant legal provisions.
However, Mr Justice Scoffield held that the panel who refused compensation wrongly sought to identify one motivation for the attack on Mr McCabe.
“Those who perpetrated such acts during the Troubles, or were pressured into doing so, did not always have single or clearly defined reasons,” the judge said.
He found the policy guidance wrongly indicated paramilitary-style attacks on individuals perceived to be engaged in anti-social behaviour or crime should not be regarded as meeting the definition of a TRI.
“That statement is too absolute to represent an accurate reflection of the statutory test discussed above,” he said.
“A material reason may be to further the terrorist organisation’s operations in a variety of ways as part of its campaign related to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland or political or sectarian hostility.
“In such cases, it is quite possible that a vigilante-style paramilitary attack could be a qualifying TRI.”
Quashing the refusal of victims payments to the father and daughter, Mr Justice Scoffield confirmed: “The decisions will be remitted to an appeal panel of the Board for further determination in accordance with the judgment of the court.”
However, the judge also cited Mr McCabe’s previous criminal record and a rule which potentially denies a victim’s payment to those with relevant convictions.
He added: “If the Board is satisfied on further consideration that, on the balance of probabilities, the incident giving rise to the applicants’ injuries was a TRI, it may then have to turn its mind to (that) regulation.”