[2025] UKUT 181 (AAC)

In that even the review must fail since in order to succeed the Applicant would have to demonstrate both that, due to exceptional circumstances he could not have applied earlier and that the evidence presented in support of the application means that it can be determined without further extensive enquiries. For the sake of completeness, however, I shall briefly ground 4 in relation to paragraph 89(b) of the 2012 Scheme.

What the Tribunal found was that

“18.

The only way he might qualify for an award of compensation is if there is a further mental injury attributable to the domestic abuse as distinct from the 2015 incident and the pre-existing condition. That would require a considerable amount of additional evidence from a consultant psychiatrist/clinical psychologist to separate the pre-existing mental ill health and 2015 incident from the mental ill health arising out of the domestic abuse. We would foresee the input of a highly experienced specialist with access to all of the preceding reports and the Appellant’s medical records. The terms of the instructions and the commissioning of that report would require significant input from the Appellant’s advisers and the Authority, and the report would require a detailed consultation with the Appellant. Thereafter consideration of that report would be necessary.

19.

It strikes us as clearly evident that the above matters cumulatively would constitute “further extensive enquiries” – and it is hard to see how commissioning and considering such a report would be anything other than further extensive enquiries.”

I can see no error of law in those conclusions, which in my judgment the Tribunal was perfectly entitled to make on the material before it. As it said, it is hard to see how commissioning and considering such a report would be anything other than further extensive enquiries. Significantly, the Applicant did not challenge the finding that further extensive enquiries were required in respect of the mental injuries. That being the case, it cannot be said that the Tribunal was wrong to find that further extensive enquiries were required to determine the application.

Mr Mandagere sought to argue that the Tribunal was wrong to have proceeded on the footing that the only award for which the Applicant could qualify was a further mental injury and that he could also have qualified for a Level B3 award of £2000 for “Serious abuse – intermittent physical assaults resulting in an accumulation of healed wounds, burns or scalds, but with no appreciable disfigurement”.

I do not accept that argument. The Level B3 award for which he contends requires intermittent physical assaults “resulting in an accumulation of healed wounds, burns or scalds, but with no appreciable disfigurement”. There is, however, no evidence before the Tribunal of wounds,burns or scalds (healed or otherwise) caused by any assault by the Applicant’s former partner on him.

The Applicant refers to being kicked in the chest in December 2014, regularly pushed in 2015 and having a shoe thrown at his head in 2015 (all in Great Britain). Mr Mandagere submitted that it was not suggested that these assaults did not cause wounding, but that is misconceived. It is for the Applicant to prove his case. If that was his case, it was incumbent on him to make that case and lead, or show, some evidence of that. He did not lead any evidence that any of the specific incidents caused wounding nor that there was an accumulation of such healed wounds. On the face of them such incidents would not of themselves cause wounding, as opposed to at most bruising. There is no medical evidence that there was any wounding caused by such incidents nor were such injuries claimed in his application for compensation, in which he claimed for only mental injuries.

Moreover, as Mr Moretto rightly submitted, insofar as the Applicant relied on “being kicked, punched, assaulted with an iron pole and having his hair pulled” and says that those may have caused any such wounds, burns or scalds, the majority of those assaults as set out in his witness statement (and by far the most serious ones) took place whilst he and his former partner were travelling in Israel, France and the United States. If those were the assaults which caused such injuries, he would not be able to recover any compensation for them in any event as they took place outside Great Britain.

It is also important to understand that his ex-partner has denied the allegations of abuse. If the Applicant is contending that there were individual acts between 2014 and 2016 which did cause the necessary accumulation of healed wounds, burns or scalds, there would plainly need to be further extensive inquiries to determine that. To makes out the grounds for an award, the Applicant would need to provide evidence of each specific assault, in Great Britain, and to provide evidence of the specific wound caused. CICA would then have to investigate whether (a) such an assault happened, (b) any wound was in fact caused by such an assault and (c) there was an accumulation of healed wounds (or burns or scalds) caused by those assaults. That would plainly require further extensive enquiries and it is fanciful to suggest otherwise.

That ground of review must necessarily fail in any event, even if it had arisen for decision.