[2025] UKUT 181 (AAC)

Rather, the “exceptional circumstances” relied upon by the Applicant in his appeal was that he did not know he was the victim of a crime at the hands of his partner:

in his first appeal on 11 May 2022: “I was not aware I was suffering or undergoing domestic abuse/violence from my ex-partner until I was advised by the police and my psychotherapist”

letter from Hestia, “[he] was at first not aware he was suffering domestic abuse until he confided in a professional and was unaware he could claim for his pain and trauma until the police informed him he could”

closing submissions at the hearing: “the Applicant’s case, as with many abuse cases, is that he did not appreciate that the conduct he complained of was a criminal offence”

at the hearing: “the post-traumatic stress disorder re-enforced his lack of appreciation that the conduct complained of was a criminal offence and that in itself is the reason for the delay”, and

“Ultimately the core of our argument is that the nature of the abuse he suffered and the residual impact of that meant that he was unable to conceive of it as a crime and as opposed to a stabbing injury”.

at [15], having set out the Applicant’s case that he did not appreciate he was going through domestic abuse until much later:

“We can accept that up to a point but the difficulty for the Appellant is that he reported a crime of domestic violence to the police in August 2016, some three months after it ended. It is simply not reasonably possible for the Appellant to claim he was unaware that he was the victim of crime after reporting it to the police. In our assessment we thought that the Appellant knew he was a victim of crime when he reported it to the police”

indeed, as the police evidence (from his report to the police in 2019, referring back to the incidents leading up to 2016) states

“The applicant reports and was interviewed stating that he was assaulted and abused on numerous occasions by the assailant, his property was damaged”.