[2025] UKUT 132 (AAC)

LB made submissions that his main priority at the time of his ESA claim was to get his ankle mended so he would be employable. LB argued that at the time of his (ESA) assessment, he wasn’t in that state. He referred to his employer trying a phased return but that it failed because of the problems with his right ankle.

In his submissions, LB requested an oral hearing. He wrote that this was because in the FTT phone hearing, he could not always hear properly what was said in the Tribunal and on several occasions, he had to ask for a question to be repeated as he could not properly hear what had been said. LB stated he did request an oral hearing but got a phone one instead. He considered an oral hearing would be better for him to put his points across. I take LB’s reference to an oral hearing to be to having his appeal heard face-to-face at a Tribunal venue.

In his most recent submissions received on 24 March 2025, LB also stated that when the FTT hearing took place, he thought he had different numbered papers to the rest of the people present, for example, when asked to go to a specific page of the bundle, he wasn’t reading the same text. LB stated this confused him because he could not keep up with what was being discussed in the hearing. LB stated that if he had been given an oral (face-to-face) hearing, this could have been resolved more efficiently.

LB also wrote that he was struggling at points to hear and understand what had been said to him, because of this he was not given the opportunity to answer the said questions, so these points were dismissed, and the hearing moved on to the next question, which in his opinion was unfair. LB stated that the judge did ask him at the end of the hearing if he would like to answer the questions he did not hear and could not answer. LB stated that by this point he was feeling too overwhelmed by the way that the hearing went and as a result, thought his points (or the lack of them) weren’t heard or valued.