[2025] UKUT 181 (AAC)

Central to the Applicant’s evidence and submissions was the gendered nature of the abuse and in particular his feelings of shame as a male victim of abuse. It was the Applicant’s case that when he went to Mankind, he finally appreciated what it meant to be a male victim of domestic abuse.

The Tribunal accepted “up to a point” that the Applicant had feelings of shame and that it caused trauma. However, it found that he must have known that he was a victim of crime when he reported the matter to the police in August 2016.

The Tribunal then went on to consider the Applicant’s secondary submission, namely that the psychological injury inhibited his understanding of the seriousness of the crime and that it could be compensated. However, at no point in its assessment of this issue did it consider the feelings of shame and abuse. In essence, it only considered the feelings of shame and abuse with respect to whether he considered himself to be a victim of crime and not with respect to the impact of the injury.

The failure to take any account of the gender dynamics of the abuse, or the impact of the trauma, was a material error by the Tribunal for the following reasons:

the Applicant’s psychiatric injury cannot be understood without reference to his feelings of shame and trauma as a male victim of domestic abuse. His feelings of shame reinforced his pre-existing depression and anxiety.

while the abuse was mentioned in the medical reports, ultimately a distinction ought to be drawn between reporting the symptoms of abuse to a treating doctor and reporting the domestic abuse to the Authority. A report of an abuse told in confidence is materially distinct from a report to the Authority for compensation.