\n<\/p>\n
A woman who was sexually assaulted while sleeping on a flight to London is challenging UK government rules that disqualify her from a compensation scheme because the plane was not registered in Britain.<\/p>\n
She was attacked on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha, Qatar, to Gatwick in September last year.<\/p>\n
Momade Jussab, 66, of Feltham, was sitting next to her and put his hands down her trousers. He was arrested on arrival at Gatwick.<\/p>\n
In May, he was handed a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence at Lewes crown court after being found guilty of one count of sexual assault by penetration and two counts of sexual assault.<\/p>\n
His victim, who has maintained her anonymity and is referred to as Kelly, has been denied a payout through the criminal injuries compensation scheme because the incident happened on a plane that was not registered in Britain.<\/p>\n
The law firm Leigh Day, which is representing Kelly, has written to the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, urging her to close what it believes is a gap in the law.<\/p>\n
Kelly, who is in her 20s and from London, said: \u201cI do not understand why I, and other victims like me, have been excluded from the CIC scheme.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was attacked on a flight en route to the UK, I am a UK citizen, and this crime was investigated and prosecuted by British authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should be entitled to compensation, and being excluded from the scheme is unfair and illogical. I am still suffering with the effects of the attack and want to move forward with my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Civil Aviation Act was updated in 1996 to ensure criminal acts on foreign planes bound for the UK can be prosecuted in UK criminal courts.<\/p>\n
Claire Powell, a solicitor at Leigh Day, said: \u201cOur client suffered an horrific sexual attack on a UK-bound flight. She was refused compensation under the criminal injuries compensation scheme simply because it was a foreign flight and the rules have not been amended in line with the updates to the Civil Aviation Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a gap that needs closing urgently and we trust the justice secretary will agree, particularly in light of this government\u2019s commitment to addressing violence against women and girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: \u201cOur thoughts remain with this victim, and we remain resolute in our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. The rules that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority follows, and the values of payments for injuries, are set by parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther routes are available for victims to receive support.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A woman who was sexually assaulted while sleeping on a flight to London is challenging UK government rules that disqualify her from a compensation scheme because the plane was not registered in Britain. She was attacked on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha, Qatar, to Gatwick in September last year. Momade Jussab, 66, of Feltham,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[360,7941,5821,3021,182,358,666,359,9917,668],"class_list":{"0":"post-16598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-assault","9":"tag-assaulted","10":"tag-challenges","11":"tag-compensation","12":"tag-flight","13":"tag-rape","14":"tag-rules","15":"tag-sexual","16":"tag-sexually","17":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}