[2025] UKUT 98 (AAC)

Given what we say above about SB’s failure to report the Allegations on 25^th February 2023, we consider there to be very good reason to doubt SB’s evidence.

Further, we note that SB’s Account has very little probative value because, while it reports the Allegations themselves, it does not explain how SB knew that RW did as she alleged. SB doesn’t say where she was when the alleged events occurred, or what she could see or hear. She doesn’t say whether the words she reports are the actual words said (or shouted) or whether they are a paraphrase. Indeed, she doesn’t indicate whether she was a direct witness to the alleged events at all, or whether the events she tells of were reported to her by another.

Because SB wasn’t interviewed as part of the disciplinary investigation and because she wasn’t called as a witness at the hearing before the Upper Tribunal, we can’t answer any of these questions. As such her evidence is worthy of very little weight.

By contrast, in her oral evidence RW gave a detailed description of the layout of the Care Home and said that SB was in the dining room with the other residents giving them their dinner at the time AG blocked the door, and she wouldn’t have been able to see RW or AG from there. We accepted RW’s account.