PSNI Compensation Bill Hits £3 - With £60m to come

Compensation paid to police officers has reached almost £3m – but a further £60m is being sought by former officers suffering hearing loss mainly caused in the Troubles.

In the past 12 months, serving and former officers have settled 269 claims totalling £2,926,424 and now it has also emerged that the expected bill for past officers with varying degrees of hearing damage will eventually reach £60m.

This is of concern for the NI Policing Board, as this level of compensation would be beyond its scope and could only be paid from budgets outside that for regular policing, such as from Westminster coffers.

Meanwhile, the £3m compensation payments already settled in 12 months have been made for a range of conditions, deafness included.

Over 120 officers - mostly former police officers - have successfully sued for hearing loss - with resultant payments issued ranging from £100,000 to £5,000 each.

The biggest individual award (£224,426) involved an officer injured in a car crash while on duty.

Others related to everything from a defective shower mat at police premises (£2,500) to tripping on an incident cordon tape (£1,750).

Another was awarded £4,000 after alleging he was "unlawfully subjected to a breathalyser test".

Yet another received £500 more (£4,500) after he developed "ENT (ear, nose and throat) problems" due to poor ventilation in police vehicles.

One female officer got £3,000 for stress suffered "as a result of a transfer", while a male colleague was awarded £5,000 after being "struck by a Venetian blind and window frame".

Other successful claims involved alleged sexual and religious discrimination and damage to officers' personal property.

A police spokeswoman said: "The PSNI treat each case individually and deal with them on their own merit. It is not our policy to discuss the details of such cases."

The statistics were obtained under Freedom of Information legislation and figures outlining the level of compensation paid in previous years were not available.

(BMcC)