[2024] UKUT 00436 (TCC)

The FTT was entitled to reject the evidence that the Applicant had not received any income from the pub after 2011 as he had only worked at the New Tyke pub between 2008 and 2011. It considered the Applicant’s evidence on the topic as recorded in the Decision at various points (see for example, [36(1)]) and rejected it for the reasons given, in particular at [74]-[79].

The Applicant did not identify the evidence to me that was said to come from his father, Brian Hague, beyond setting a hearing bundle reference in his speaking note. He did not provide this statement to me during the hearing but only emailed me during the hearing with a generic letter dated 30 March 2020 said to be from Brian Hague that stated to the effect that the Applicant ceased work at the New Tyke Inn in 2011. After the hearing, the Applicant emailed me to provide the copy of the two page statement of Brian Hague which is in similar terms. However, he did not identify the relevant paragraphs of that statement which he suggested the FTT had failed to take into account or explain why they would have been material to the findings on this issue in accordance with the guidance in Georgiou.

To the extent that the Applicant submits that the evidence of his father, Brian Hague, was not taken into account by the FTT on this topic, I reject this. The FTT set out at [74] that it had taken into account the statement (evidence) of his father (and others) on the issue of gambling wins. It also took account of the email sent by Brian Hague on 27 September 2020 at [35(5)] which set out the claim that the Applicant worked at the pub between 2008 and 2011 which the FTT noted was turned into the witness statement of September 2021. The FTT’s record of the email and statement concludes: ‘After this payment in 2011 Steven [h]as not been to the premises or received any money whatsoever from myself or new tyke, and didn’t have any communication till after my prison sentence in June 2016.’

To the extent that the email and statement supported the Applicant’s account that he stopped working at the pub in 2011, and hence the residual unexplained credits after 2011 could not be undeclared wages but must have been gambling wins, the FTT rejected this at [74]: ‘These third-party statements do not assist the appellant in quantifying any further amounts that can be reduced than what Officer Tailor has already done in revising the quantum of the discovery assessments.’

The FTT gave sufficient reasons at [74]-[79] for rejecting the general account and explanation of the Applicant which was consistent with the statement of Brian Hague. The FTT’s reasons for rejecting the Applicant’s account as to the wages coming from the time he was working at the pub apply equally to the account set out in Brian Hague’s statement.

Furthermore, even if the FTT did not give any specific reasons for rejecting Brian Hague’s statement, I am satisfied that any lack of reasons was not a material error of law as it was entitled to find reject the evidence on the balance of probabilities and find that it did not undermine its findings regarding the unexplained residual credits. This is because: a) the evidence of Brian Hague was only contained in a written statement and was untested hearsay – there was no oral evidence given by him as he was not called to give evidence at the hearing and the statement was not tested in cross examination so less weight would normally be given to it; b) Brian Hague was not an independent witness because he was father of the Applicant; and c) the FTT set out at various points in the Decision evidence as to Brian Hague’s criminal conviction for drugs offences. Relying on all these matters the FTT was entitled not to place further weight on Brian Hague’s evidence in corroboration of his son, the Applicant, on this topic (see [36](12) and [37]). There was no material error in rejecting the explanation put forward by Brian Hague and the FTT did not arguably fail to take the statement into account.