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If a 14 year old child causes damage to a building, can the owner sue the child or the parent? Obviously the child has no income so can't pay so does that make the parent liable?
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I think you stand a chance.
The first thing you need to do is establish, to the satisfaction of a civil court, the child did it.
At 14, the child can be convicted of the offence in the criminal court.
Rightly or wrongly, civil courts do not accept a criminal conviction as automatic proof, I imagine because the criminal conviction may be a miscarriage of justice.
But it is regarded as very strong support.
Going back to the criminal court, there are increasing moves to hold parents responsible for the actions of their children, so that general thrust is in your favour.
Another possibility is the youth court could make a compensation order in favour of the victim.
Because of reporting restrictions, I'm rarely in youth courts, so can't say I've seen it done, but I think it can be.
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I'd have thought compensation order might be a more do-able route.
Suing a minor directly is nigh on impossible.
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You would normally have to sue the child for negligence not the parents and there is no point in suing a young person who does not have any money. (They might have insurance.)
In theory you can sue a child and wait till they start work to recover the money.
A parent can be held liable for their child’s actions if the parent failed to take reasonable care to see that the child did not cause harm to others.
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Generally speaking a minor requires a litigation friend (formerly next friend or Guardian ad-litem) in court proceedings.
While the processes for appointing an LF for an injured child claimant are well established the path to sue a child is less well trodden. I think you'd need to convince a judge to make the appointment.
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As a general comment, a responsible parent with the means to pay would make good the damage without being sued.
The irresponsible parent may not have the means, and even if they did, would attempt to ignore a court order.
A county court judgment would clip their wings when they wanted to upgrade the iPhone, but the victim would not have the satisfaction of seeing it happen.
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The parent should be responsible if a child of fourteen causes damage to property.
Never works out in practice.Had my car damaged once by a bicycle dropping agains it by a youngster.They all covered up for each other I had to pay through insurance.
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>> A county court judgment would clip their wings when they wanted to upgrade the iPhone
I would suspect that would be the only outcome the perp would consider a true punishment.
On one of the police blogs recently, the point was made that unless a criminal loses their freedom or their possessions, or has physical pain inflicted upon them, they consider themselves to have "got away with" the offence. Fines, community orders et al don't mean anything to them.
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Children & criminal damage - Iffy
