Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Key definition

Secondary victim definition

What does Secondary victim mean? In negligence practice, a secondary victim is someone who suffers a recognised psychiatric injury (nervous shock) without being directly endangered, but by witnessing a sudden, shocking event involving a primary victim, or by reasonably fearing for the primary victim’s safety. The term is not statutory; it is a case law label used to define when liability for psychiatric injury may extend beyond those physically involved. Across the UK and Ireland, key features typically include: foreseeability of psychiatric harm; a close tie of love and affection with the primary victim; proximity in time and space to the event or its immediate aftermath;...

Secondary Victims and Psychiatric Injury: Case Tracker of Post-Alcock Jurisprudence and Control Mechanisms, Culminating in Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

Published by a LexisNexis PI & Clinical Negligence expert

Practice notes

This case tracker

This case tracker surveys the decisions handed down since the leading authority of Alcock v Chief Constable of Yorkshire Police in 1991. Later judgments broadened the notion of Secondary victims and examined how far the courts would permit Personal injury claims to be brought by such secondary victims. Yet the outcomes lacked consistency, generating uncertainty. The landmark Supreme Court ruling in Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust has now brought clarity, having scrutinised in depth the earlier line of cases and standing as the controlling authority in this field. Certain decisions were expressly declared to have been wrongly determined; others were affirmed as reaching the correct result but for incorrect reasoning, and these have been highlighted. It is still uncertain how the jurisprudence will evolve concerning accidents within a clinical negligence setting. A secondary victim is an individual who suffers psychiatric harm not through direct participation in an accident, but through witnessing the event or its immediate aftermath. The Supreme Court decision in Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust has refined the principles governing secondary victim claims, after significant inconsistency had emerged across the case law over time. The courts have established particularly in clinical negligence accidents...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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