Sort of, he did cite Cummins, which makes him fair TCAP game
On paper, Monkey Nuts Studio Ltd looks like a love‑letter to inclusion.
On its website, the company’s “Inclusive by Design” arm promises “immersive learning sessions led by people with lived experience of disability” and claims to deliver “empathy that lasts, understanding that runs deeper, and actionable changes that lead to better, more user‑centred products”.
The CEO fronting that pitch is Jago Livingstone (also of LIVINGSTONE DESIGN GROUP LTD).
This is an article about what happens when that same Jago ends up on the other side of a disabled person – not as a client in a carefully‑curated workshop, but as a claimant in a very real, very contrived small‑claims dispute.
Spoiler: the empathy doesn’t seem to make it out of the slide deck.
The set‑up: “Excellent for its age” vs a disabled private seller
The case is simple enough.
- Private sale, Nissan 350Z, £5,500.
- Advert / messages: “excellent condition, particularly considering its age” with an MOT advisory for “general underbody corrosion”, described as surface rust after the car had been SORN.
- No warranty. No pre‑purchase inspection. No promise to tear the car down on a ramp before Jago drove it 250 miles back to London. His evidence pack? Some photos from under the car showing, errr, underbody corrosion.
Months later, after driving it, servicing it, upgrading it and putting more money into mods than most people spend on a first car, bugging the life out of me with updates like “she’s being looking after”, Jago decides the real problem isn’t buyer’s remorse – it’s that the seller must have known about alleged hidden structural corrosion all along.
Not “did know”. Not “I have evidence he knew”.
Just must have known. That speculative leap is the spine of his misrepresentation case.
The defendant in all this is me: Lee Thompson – disabled, on PIP and LCWRA, with long‑standing depression, anxiety and panic attacks documented by my GP. That matters, because of what comes next.
14 November: panic attack, adjournment email, and a very quiet claimant
The first final hearing was listed for 14 November.
In the early hours, I had a severe panic attack and, at 05:56, emailed the court to explain and request an adjournment on medical grounds. Jago was copied in.
The court’s own order records what happened next:
- Jago emailed the court separately without copying me in.
- When the hearing started, he turned up; I didn’t, because I was ill.
- He did not tell the judge that I’d requested an adjournment for a mental‑health crisis, nor that he’d replied to that email.
- The hearing went ahead in my absence, and an ex tempore judgment was given against me.
- Only after the hearing did the court become aware of the email exchange, at which point the judgment was recalled “in the interests of fairness” and the case relisted.
You’d think someone who sells “empathy that lasts” might, when asked about the missing disabled defendant, say: “He’s emailed – he’s had a panic attack, he’s asked for an adjournment”.
Instead, Jago lost his voice.
When I later wrote to the court saying I found this disingenuous and distressing, Jago’s response was not “I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it”. It was to send in call logs and screenshots to prove he’d phoned the helpline about his own late arrival – as if this somehow answered why he’d stayed quiet about my disability‑related adjournment request. Change the subject, the judge might not notice.
Inclusive by design; selective by practice.
The concert that mattered more than the panic attack
In his 3 December letter to the court, Jago went further. He urged the judge to look at an Employment Tribunal judgment from a totally separate case, arguing it proved I have a “pattern” of not turning up when health and medication are involved.
And then came the kicker:
“There has already been a significant impact on myself and others… I had made arrangements to be present, including taking time off work and travelling from London, and I missed a scheduled concert that evening due to the court commitment”.
So let’s join the dots:
- Disabled defendant has a panic attack, tells the court at 05:56, asks for an adjournment.
- Accessibility‑consultant claimant says nothing about that at the hearing.
- When judgment is recalled because the court only finds out later, he complains to the judge – not about his own silence – but about the gig he missed.
Empathy that lasts… right up until the encore. Monkey Nuts Studio Ltd’s ambassador, ladies and gentlemen.
Importing another case: when “lived experience” means weaponising someone else’s
Jago runs a company that markets sessions “led by individuals living with disabilities” to help teams understand the barriers disabled people face.
In this claim, his strategy has been to rummage through my Employment Tribunal case against Cummins – a dispute involving a former employer, years of workplace issues and a judgment that’s under appeal – and present selected snippets as if they were a universal character reference.
He invites the small‑claims judge to see a “behavioural pattern” of non‑attendance and delay.
What he doesn’t say in that same breath:
- The ET case itself accepted that I’m disabled.
- My GP has written to this court confirming I “suffer with a mental health problem symptomatic of panic attacks”. After his silent performance in court, he now seems to be hoping that a few lifted lines from an ET judgment will somehow trump my doctor’s letter. It would be ridiculous if he didn’t actually appear to believe it.
That’s not inclusion. That’s weaponising someone else’s condition when it suits your litigation strategy.
The car narrative: unsafe when convenient, “she’s being looked after” when exciting
The technical side of the claim has been dissected in my strike‑out application, but a few beats are worth repeating because they show the same pattern: the story flexes around whatever’s useful to say in the moment.
- Jago says a garage told him in January the car was “unsafe” to work on. There’s no January WhatsApp message reporting this, no job card, no invoice using the word “unsafe”.
- Despite this supposed “unsafe” warning, he keeps driving the car, doesn’t get it towed, and doesn’t book an urgent MOT or DVSA inspection.
- In April, he books a 90k service, clutch replacement, uprated clutch hose and slave, short‑shift kit, boot‑spring kit, new sump, fluids – over £1,000 of work at Horsham Developments. High end work at a high end garage, not particularly pragmatic for a car of that age. But his car, his choice. In April, apparently, the car is now safe to work on – unlike three months earlier, when it was supposedly too dangerous for anyone to touch
- Around that time he messages that the car is “being looked after” and sets about further upgrades. Elective upgrades, not repairs.
The “too unsafe to work on” story only really takes centre stage when he needs to justify labelling the car a write‑off and demanding his money back.
When faced with contradictions – such as arranging significant elective upgrades on a car he claims was fundamentally unsafe months earlier – he simply pivots. The goalposts move; the empathy stays frozen.
Copy‑and‑paste inclusion vs doing the work
On the Monkey Nuts site, “Inclusive by Design” is sold as a corrective to box‑ticking accessibility – something deeper than checklists, something grounded in real disabled lives.
But when you look at how Jago has actually behaved toward a disabled person in a real‑world conflict, the contrast is hard to ignore:
- Downplaying disability – recasting what I told him was a disability as a mere “stress‑related health concern” and telling the court I’m painting a “false picture” of being evasive, despite GP evidence and benefits decisions confirming the opposite.
- Selective silence with the court – knowing about a panic‑attack adjournment request, emailing the court privately, then saying nothing about it when asked about my absence, resulting in an unfair ex parte judgment that had to be recalled.
- Using another tribunal’s findings as a stick – importing an ET judgment from an unrelated employment case, not to illuminate any technical issue about the car, but to tell the small‑claims judge “this is the sort of person you’re dealing with”.
- Framing my attempts to manage my health as obstruction – when I pre‑warn the court that a fresh medication change could destabilise me again and ask for reasonable adjustments, he responds with a lecture about his travel plans, his dog sitter, his missed concert… and a nudge to treat any adjournment request with suspicion.
From where I’m standing, this isn’t inclusive behaviour. It’s the opposite: a pattern of minimising, exploiting and complaining about disability when it inconveniences him.
So… “Bigot by Design”?
I’m not a judge, and this article isn’t a legal finding. It’s my account as the disabled defendant on the receiving end of Monkey Nuts Studio’s CEO in non‑marketing mode – in emails, pleadings and hearings, not polished workshop slides.
But if you strip the branding away and just look at the behaviour:
- A self‑described accessibility founder who stays quiet about a panic‑attack adjournment.
- Who complains more about a missed concert than a recalled judgment.
- Who trawls a disabled person’s past litigation to portray them as inherently flaky.
- Who rebrands a documented disability as “stress” when it suits his narrative.
…it’s fair, in my view, to ask whether “Inclusive by Design” is a genuine ethos or a nice‑sounding wrapper around something much harsher.
Monkey Nuts Studio Ltd – Inclusive by Design, or Bigot by Design?
You decide. Me? I’d suggest Jago crawls back under the stone he’s been living under.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Update (11 December 2025): The case concluded on 11 December 2025. The court dismissed Mr Livingstone’s claim and dismissed my application for costs. I will not comment further. No allegations are made against any other employee, contractor, or colleague at Monkey Nuts Studio. I hope Mr Livingstone resolves any issues with his car at his own expense. On older performance and modern-classic cars, different owners prioritise different things. I prioritised keeping the car OEM and original. The subsequent upgrades are betterment and a change in direction, which makes any idea of unwinding the sale by returning the car for the full price impractical. When i see a claim “3k” for a front subframe and I see them on eBay for £300 and estimates of 6 hours labour, I don’t know if he’s artificially inflating a claim or just refusing the pragmatism required to own that type of car. I have nothing further to add.
This update is provided for completeness; the rest of this post reflects my views at the time it was published.