[2025] UKUT 181 (AAC)

he was able to, and did, make an application under the Scheme

indeed, he plainly had access to the internet which would also have enabled him to have access to the Scheme: indeed he later contacted Mankind through searches on the internet and he has never suggested that he did not have such access.

that was not his case before the Tribunal – his case was that he did not know he was subject to abuse/it was a crime

but in any event, knowing that there is a scheme to compensate victims of crime, but not knowing the details of the Scheme, could not possibly be an exceptional circumstance which could allow for the discretion to extend time. That is because, as his counsel pointed out in his skeleton to the Tribunal, “exceptional circumstances” must exclude those which are “routinely or regularly encountered” (see at [11]). No applicant will know of the details of the Scheme: there could be no basis on which it could be said that would amount to exceptional circumstances which would permit the Tribunal to extend time.