[2023] UKUT 132 (AAC)

My understanding of the submissions is that the Appellant accepts that, of itself, the Tribunal’s delay in giving its decision did not amount to an error on a point of law. I say that because, at the hearing of this appeal, Mr Coppel’s arguments focussed on the safety of the Tribunal’s finding that Mr Budhdeo’s evidence lacked credibility. In my judgment, the Tribunal’s credibility finding was not rendered unsafe by virtue of delay. As Mr Lockley argues for the Commissioner, the Tribunal did not rely on the general impression or demeanour of Mr Budhdeo when giving oral evidence. Its adverse credibility finding was largely based on the more hard-edged matter of Mr Budhdeo’s initial denial that he was the ‘S Budhdeo’ recorded by Companies House as the director of a particular company, and that it was in fact his brother, followed by his response when that denial was shown to have been incorrect. I am certain that the judge’s contemporaneous note of the hearing would have recorded these features of Mr Budhdeo’s evidence so that any dimming of the judge’s memory of what happened at the hearing had no bearing on the safety of the adverse credibility finding. Ground 7 is not made out.