Procedural fairness
14.Mrs Tann in her grounds of appeal states that she lost connection shortly after the start of the hearing. She says that she tried to reconnect, and then repeatedly tried to phone the FTT from her mobile and her land line and emailed the case officer at the FTT. She was reconnected; she acknowledges that the FTT in its refusal of permission to appeal stated that she was re-connected at 11:02 but says that the disconnection felt much longer than half an hour. She says counsel then summarised his opening in about five minutes and that it made “no meaningful sense” to her. She was particularly upset by this because she had received counsel for the respondents’ skeleton argument shortly before the hearing and had had no time to read it. (Mrs Tann asked for permission to appeal the admission of the skeleton argument, and was refused both by the FTT and by this Tribunal, and so I make no further comment on that).15.The FTT refused permission to appeal on this point. It said that Mrs Tann made no attempt to contact the FTT to alert it to the fact that she was disconnected, and that when the judge noted she had been disconnected the hearing was stopped and the tribunal waited until she was reconnected at 11:02.16.What I believe has happened here is that neither the FTT nor Mrs Tann knew what the other was doing. Mrs Tann did not know that the hearing had been stopped and that the FTT was waiting for her; it was not the case that the hearing went on for half an hour in her absence. Equally, the judge and member did not know that Mrs Tann had made eight phone calls and sent an email while she was disconnected, as I accept that she did. 17.Mrs Tann acknowledges that she did not tell the FTT that she did not understand Mr Sadiq’s recapitulation of his opening. I asked her what more the FTT should have done, and she was not able to help me. I asked her whether she thought that, if I were to agree that the proceedings were unfair, the respondents’ application should be sent back to the FTT to start again or whether the appeal should proceed so that the Upper Tribunal can decide the substantive issue. She sensibly conceded that the appeal should go ahead.18.Mr Sadiq confirmed that the FTT at the hearing made every effort to help Mrs Tann, to explain what was happening, and to have cross-examination questions repeated and simplified for her where necessary, and I have no doubt that that is the case. 19.Losing connection during a video hearing is very stressful, and I understand completely that to be shut out of the hearing for so long was upsetting for Mrs Tann. The FTT’s comments about Mrs Tann’s attempts to contact the tribunal while she was disconnected were unhelpful, and ignored the obvious fact that where a party is trying frantically but unsuccessfully to make contact the tribunal would necessarily be unaware of the efforts being made. But so far as the hearing itself was concerned the FTT followed the proper course in halting the hearing, waiting for her to re-connect, re-starting the hearing and asking counsel for the freeholders to repeat his opening. I find that there was no unfairness in the FTT’s procedure. The appeal fails on this ground.