AA/04258/2015

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The decision



Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal no: aa/ 04258/2015

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

At 
Decision and Reasons Promulgated
on 01.11.2017
on 06.11.2017

Before:
Upper Tribunal Judge
John FREEMAN
Between:
M. RM M
(Anonymity Direction Made)
appellant
and


respondent
Representation:
For the appellant: Agata Patyna (counsel instructed by Gurney Harden, Ashford)
For the respondent: Mr Lawrence Tarlow

DECISION AND REASONS
This is an appeal, by the , against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Samantha Mace), sitting at Hatton Cross on 14 June, to  an asylum appeal by a Muslim citizen of Sri Lanka, born 1983.
2. The evidence for the appellant before the judge included evidence of scarring, in an unusually detailed report from Dr Elizabeth Clarke. The judge said at paragraph 26 that she considered the report in the light of its consistency with the appellant's account, which however she had other reasons for rejecting: these she gave clearly and cogently. However, the only specific point on which she indicated, at paragraph 26 that the report itself, and the conclusions in it, might not be acceptable was the writer's failure to deal with the issue of possible self-infliction by proxy 'SIBP', though Dr Clarke did in fact deal with it on the points she noted at paragraphs 6.18 and 6.20.
3. Though the judge did not refer to it, this must have been based on the country guidance in KV (scarring - medical evidence) [2014] UKUT 230 (IAC). That however had already been overruled on the point in question in KV (Sri Lanka) [2017] EWCA Civ 119, to which counsel who appeared before the judge (not Miss Patyna) might usefully have referred her.
4. In the circumstances, Mr Tarlow accepted that the judge's overall credibility findings at paragraph 26 were wrong in law, as she had not dealt with Dr Clarke's report on its merits. The result will be a fresh hearing before another first-tier judge.
Appeal : decision set aside
Fresh hearing before First-tier Tribunal at Hatton Cross (not Judge Mace)
(a judge of the Upper Tribunal)

Dated: 02 November 2017