[2024] UKUT 440 (AAC)

We heard first-hand from JC when he gave oral evidence. In addition to the written statement he had prepared, he answered questions from Mr Serr.

As Bean LJ observed in DBS v RI, “where relevant oral evidence is adduced before the UT in an appeal under s 4(2)(b) of the 2006 Act the Tribunal may view the oral and written evidence as a whole and make its own findings of primary fact” (at [31]). As Bean LJ added later, “where Parliament has created a tribunal with the power to hear oral evidence it entrusts the tribunal with the task of deciding, by reference to all the oral and written evidence in the case, whether a witness is telling the truth” (at [37]). In the same Court of Appeal judgment, Males LJ ruled (at [55]) that where an appellant gives oral testimony:

“… the evidence before the Upper Tribunal is necessarily different from that which was before the DBS for a paper-based decision. Even if the appellant can do no more than repeat the account which they have already given in written representations, the fact that they submit to cross-examination, which may go well or badly, necessarily means that the Upper Tribunal has to assess the quality of that evidence in a way which did not arise before the DBS.”