[2024] UKUT 171 (AAC)

We have tried to get as close as we can to KK’s allegation.

The best we have is the statement taken on 30 June. It was either taken by CD or WF. The report in the LADO record fixes the date of the statement, but leaves unclear who took it down. It is said to be ‘the student’s own account’.

KK did not sign that statement. She did not make a first-person statement. She was not questioned during RR’s disciplinary proceedings. We rely on the statement as the closest we have to KK’s actual words.

The account in the LADO record is largely consistent with the statement as taken on 30 June. It is not, though, cut and pasted from the statement. Two of the differences are worth mentioning. First, the report says that RR ‘engineered class pair work to have KK alone and he had worked with her.’ KK’s statement did not contain the word ‘engineered’; instead, it referred to swapping places. We take no account of the connotations that ‘engineered’ could carry. Moreover, the statement did not say that RR worked with KK alone. It says that RR asked her to be his partner. We take that to mean that he paired with her for the interviews. We do not read ‘partner’ to mean ‘boyfriend’, which is used later. Finally by RR’s account, they were not alone for the interview. Second, the report of the allegation ends: ‘The student was distressed by a lack of certainty in her own actions.’ That does not appear in the statement. It could refer to KK saying she felt uncomfortable, but that appears at the start of the LADO record. We do not understand what this means and have to ignore it.