The grieving father of a 12-year-old schoolboy murdered in the Omagh bomb atrocity in August last year told a judge yesterday he was both humbled and privileged to represent his son in court.
Mr Victor Barker, whose son James died from the injuries he suffered when caught in the blast during a school outing to Omagh from Buncrana, Co Donegal, on August 15th, 1998, was appealing against the decision of the Compensation Agency not to compensate him and his wife Donna-Maria for school fees they had paid for their son.
Mr Barker told Judge Geoffrey Foote he received compensation of just over £13,000 sterling and he believed the agency's decision not to pay accumulated private schools fees of almost £29,000 sterling was wrong. Supported by 18 relatives of many other victims of the "Real IRA" bomb, Mr Barker said his son's injuries were so horrific he was unable to survive four hours of emergency surgery.
"Indeed the terms of his pathology report show that James was blown violently a considerable distance against a hard object such as a wall or a roof and suffered multiple internal injuries as well as broken arms and legs and burns," he said.
"It is my respectful submission that whilst James was alive, those school fees paid out by my family were not expenses in the ordinary meaning of the word. They were costs of living and were paid out by us from our net income in a way which we believed would benefit our son," he said.
Mr Barker, who represented himself in court, added: "They only became expenses, or shall I use the word wasted expenses, at the moment of his death. It is my submission that they are therefore, or became expenses, at the time of his death and therefore resulted from his death.
"I would urge this court to look sympathetically upon this claim and to consider that in allowing it, the Compensation Agency could acknowledge, with sympathy, the plight of the victims of this violent crime and victims of the many other incidents of violent crime which have blackened the history of this country for so many years." However, Mr Turlough Montague, for the Compensation Agency, said that Mr Barker's appeal could not be upheld. "The claim is unprecedented because the loss does not and cannot ever be construed as flowing from the fatal injuries of James.
"They were expenses incurred during James's lifetime and they are, with respect to Mr Barker, no different from the ordinary living expenses of rearing a child. To allow this claim would be to open the floodgates for claims for similar costs to bring up a person until the date of death, whether that person be a child or an adult." Judge Foote said he would give his written judgment at a later date.
After the hearing, Mr Barker said he wanted to draw attention to the way compensation was paid to victims of violence. "It is an appalling system and we are just one of 3,500 people who have suffered in Northern Ireland since 1968 and it is high time that this government did something about it rather than just pass it on to another commission.
"It is not easy for us coming back to Omagh. Omagh is a dreadful place for us, it where James was when he died. We are drawn to it sadly. It was a privilege to represent James in court."