Victims ‘R’ Us

2022: the new Government in South Australia has produced an important ‘law reform.’

The Government website states:

If someone pleads guilty or is found guilty of the crime, you can tell the court about how the crime has affected you. You can do this by making a Victim Impact Statement (VIS). Your VIS can help the judge or magistrate understand how the crime has affected you and is one of the things they think about when deciding what penalty to give the offender. A VIS gives you a chance to talk about how you feel, and what has happened to you because of the crime. It’s about explaining how the crime has affected you: physically, emotionally, financially and socially.

‘The Advertiser‘ reported recently that Victim impact statements have been censored, for decades, by prosecutors, lawyers – even by criminals. Now the SA government is putting an end to the practice.

It’s a Free For All!!!

TVC commends the unveiling of a new service, Victim Impact Statement Enhancement (V.I.S.E.). VISE will enhance or curate your Victim Impact Statement to maximize your compensation, and bang-up your assailant for the longest time.  Discarding unhelpful and unproductive clichés such as “I hope you burn in Hell” and “Nothing will amend this infamy…” , VISE will maximize the impact on you, physically, emotionally, financially and socially. [Fee limited to 10% of victims of crime levy]

Here’s an example of what the service provides.  With aggressive redaction, here is the rough draft VISE received from one of its clients:

“When  Mouncey (I call him Monkey) stole my bike I was asleep on the lounge in my own home.  The one that me and the bloodsucking bank own.  The kids were asleep in their room because it was my weekend.  Their mother gone on holiday again with “The Boyfriend”.  

I heard a loud bang and when I looked out the window Mouncey had just fell off my bike and off the verandah into the front yard.    I wish Mouncey would of broken his neck on the concrete.  I ran out but Mouncey had made off with my bike.  I could see him in the street lights going up Sturt Road.  I run after him but I only had my jocks on and it was cold.  I got back to my house and the kids were up, crying and going on.  I said they should ring their mother  because it was 4.30 am and why should she and “The Boyfriend” be asleep when I wasn’t?

I had to get up in half an hour anyway to get to work so I rung my neighbour Bob who works with me and I got a lift with him.  So Mouncey has cost me because I had to buy Bob lunch for a month.  That’s $2.50 for the iced coffee plus $4.80 for the pie plus 20 cents for sauce plus $3.00 for the finger bun so $315 plus I bought him an extra round at the Commercial that Friday so $320 plus interest is $400.  He wanted me to buy his morning tea too but I said no.  Ha ha.

Then I had to buy a new bike.  It so happens my ex brother in law was selling a bike a lot like mine but with a new paint  job.  He’s a crash repairer.  Or says he is.  Cheap, $950 plus he sold me some things for the kids ($245) which I had to buy because they were bitching all the time.  So $1,195.  Round it up like the bloodsucking bank does to $1,200.  Plus $10 for the calculator I had to buy.

That’s the money side of what Mouncey done.  On the psychological, or mental side, I had to put up with Bob every morning and night for a month and he’s really boring. So I reckon that’s worth $1,000 which is what I need for the bloodsucking lawyer to do with the divorce because I rung him too much or something because I was so tense..  Mouncey should also pay for an extra $467 which I racked up with the other bloodsucking lawyer because of the window peeping thing which only happened  because I was so tense because of Bob and everything. 

Then there’s the mental anguish from all this court stuff. 

Bob                             $400
Brother in law          $1,200
Calculator                    $10
Lawyer                     $1,000
                                   $467
_______________________
                              $3,077
(Round it up to $5,000)
Exspecial and puniary damages.   $25,000″

And here is VISE’s settled version, having taken a de minimis approach:

“Mr. Mouncey haunts my dreams. He scars my waking days. My children dare not leave our home alone and I have developed acute agoraphobia. As a consequence, I have lost all chance of future employment. I have lost all amenity: I cannot even bear to watch television for fear of some crime report. As the song goes, “Every time I try to read a book, I can’t get to page seventeen.” In virtue of excessive and unsupervised self-medication, I have become morbidly obese and suffer from early onset dementia and cirrhosis. Most of all, I cannot trust to anyone’s integrity or humanity any longer.

My specialist assessment and detailed list of damages is attached.”

VISE can [confidentially] report on the result of its version being submitted to the Court: Ex gratia payment by the Victims of Crime Special Impact Unit: $150,000