TC09617 - [2025] UKFTT 01018 (TC)

We had an electronic hearing bundle of 7,728 pages. This included witness statements of several HMRC officers involved in investigations of Deos and other companies in the relevant supply chain, plus that of Officer Dean, who was not so involved but had succeeded the (now retired) HMRC officer who had been allocated to Deos at relevant times, and of Matthew Smith of Deos.

The exhibits to Mr Smith’s witness statements included:

We heard oral evidence from Officer Dean and from Mr Smith, including under cross examination and in answer to questions from the Tribunal.

In our factual findings which follow, we rely principally on the contemporaneous documentary evidence, which was fulsome, and on the oral evidence of Mr Smith, where corroborated by that documentary evidence. Where Mr Smith’s oral evidence on factual matters was not so corroborated, we exercised some caution in deciding whether or not it was credible (given the human tendency to remember things in a way that might assist one’s own case), and taking into account the plausibility of the evidence and its consistency with other evidence which we considered credible. We found Officer Dean’s oral evidence on factual matters of limited assistance to our fact-finding, as he was not a first-hand witness to the relevant events. When it came to matters of opinion, we gave the evidence of neither witness particularly significant weight (although we listened carefully to what they had to say, as we would to a party’s submissions), as they were not appearing before the Tribunal as experts.