Tribunal decisions

The decision

IAC-AH-SAR-V1

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: AA/12915/2015

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Field House
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 16th November 2016
On 28th November 2016

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE D E TAYLOR

Between

E P
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant

and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT

Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Ms A Patyna of Counsel instructed by Kilby Jones Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr C Avery, Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

1. This is the appellant's appeal against the decision of Judge Gribble made following a hearing at Birmingham on 23rd June 2016.
Background
2. The appellant is a citizen of Albania born on 17th October 1983. She arrived in the UK on 7th July 2013 and claimed asylum on the basis that she was a victim of human trafficking and would be at risk on return to Albania.
3. The Immigration Judge did not accept that she had told the truth about the reasons for her arrival in the UK.
4. The appellant's case is that she was previously married and separated from her husband in August 2010. She went to live with friends in Tirana where she met a Mr G and they began a relationship together. About a month later he took her to his gym, which he owned, behind which were rooms where she was forced to work as a prostitute against her will. About two and a half years later, in June 2013, she managed to escape from the hospital where she had been taken. She returned to her home but was rejected by her father. Her friend helped her to leave Albania. When she arrived in the UK she heard a woman talking Albanian, who helped her, giving her accommodation. She assisted her claim in her claim for asylum.
5. The judge found her account to be implausible. She said that it was unusual that the appellant had lived with her friends for a period of four months and yet did not mention the relationship with G to them, nor did they make any enquiries about her when she disappeared without trace. She did not accept that G assaulted her because it was in his interest, if her account was to be believed, to preserve her as a commodity. Neither did she accept that G would have the time to collect and deliver the appellant personally twice a day every day to the same gym for two and a half years when she was only a prostitute. She rejected the appellant's account of having been helped first by a policeman, and then by a nurse in the hospital, which she regarded as wholly implausible.
6. There were inconsistencies in her account of the aftermath. There was an inconsistency in relation to the purchase of antibiotics following her illness in hospital. In her AIR she said that she took public transport to her home town and in her oral evidence she said that she flagged down a van.
7. Finally, the judge regarded her account of hearing a woman speak in her language on her arrival to an unknown city in the UK, and then that woman being willing to accommodate her, to be overly coincidental.
8. The judge then considered the country guidance case of TD and AD (Trafficked women) CG [2016] UKUT 00092 and concluded that even if the appellant's circumstances were as claimed she had viable means of support available to her on a return to Tirana or another large city.
9. On that basis she dismissed the appeal.

The Grounds of Application
10. The appellant sought permission to appeal on the grounds that the judge had erred in her approach to the appellant's credibility, predominantly basing her findings on her view of what was implausible, based on preconceptions rooted in the UK. The grounds cite a number of examples, such as the fact that the judge found it unlikely that a policeman in uniform would visit a brothel, and unlikely that the hospital nurse who assisted her had not worn an ID badge. It was argued that it was not open to the judge to find it implausible that the appellant would be rejected by her father. Furthermore, the judge had drifted into speculation in rejecting the appellant's account that her trafficker had taken her to work on a daily basis, and whether it was likely that a nurse would have helped the appellant and the sort of medical treatment which would have been sought for her by her traffickers.
11. Permission to appeal was granted by Judge Foudy on 11th August 2016 for the reasons stated in the grounds.
12. On 8th September 2016 the respondent filed a reply opposing the appellant's appeal, arguing that the grounds amount to a mere disagreement with the findings.
Submissions
13. Ms Patyna submitted that the judge had erred in failing to assess the appellant's oral evidence in the context of the objective evidence before her. In particular, she relied on the Tribunal in TD and AD's conclusions on corruption in Albania which was a serious problem. There was abundant evidence in the objective material in relation to how the police and hospital might have behaved which was not referred to in the determination. She relied on the decision in Y v SSHD [2006] EWCA Civ 1223 which stressed the importance of considering credibility in the context of the society of the appellant. In particular, at paragraph 27, Keene LJ said:
"A decision maker is entitled to regard an account as incredible by such standards, but he must take care not to do so merely because it would not seem reasonable if it had happened in this country. In essence, he must look through the spectacles provided by the information he has about conditions in the country in question"
14. Mr Avery submitted that the grounds amounted to nothing more than a disagreement with the decision. The judge was fully aware of the country conditions in Albania. The appellant had only challenged a few findings, none of which were critical to the decision as a whole. She was perfectly entitled to find that many aspects of the appellant's account were unlikely to have happened as she claimed.
Findings and Conclusions
15. I am satisfied that there is no error of law in this decision for the following reasons.
16. First, the grounds are right to highlight certain passages in the determination which do appear to fall foul of the principle that credibility must be considered in the context of the appellant's home country of Albania. The observation, for example, that ID would be worn in a hospital there by a nurse would appear to be based upon the judge's observations of what would happen in the UK. Similarly, it may not have been open to her to found adverse credibility findings upon an assumption that policemen in uniform in Albania would not visit a brothel. However, these are peripheral matters.
17. The judge's conclusion that it was not credible that the appellant would not mention her new relationship to friends with whom she had been living for four months was entirely open to her. The people concerned were friends of the appellant's best friend. The judge was entitled to find it striking that they took no steps to tell that friend that the appellant had disappeared or to make any enquiries about her.
18. Equally, it was open to the judge to find it not credible that the appellant would have been unconscious for many hours without medical attention being sought if she was regarded as a valuable commodity to a person who was sufficiently involved with her to take and collect her personally twice a day every day for two and a half years to the premises where she worked as a prostitute. There was an inconsistency in her claim, highlighted by the judge, that he was well connected and wealthy and yet no-one else was involved with her until two people were sent to look after her in June 2013.
19. The judge was entitled to conclude that it was more likely that the appellant, if she was being held captive and ill, would have been seen by a doctor called to the premises rather than being taken to hospital. The conclusion that the account of the escape was implausible was not based upon culturally specific assumptions. The judge highlighted the professional difficulties to the nurse in helping the appellant escape when she had a high fever and was attached to a drip as well as taking a personal risk in helping an appellant who was being guarded by two men.
20. At paragraph 40 the judge analysed the appellant's account of her escape, noted the inconsistencies in relation to the guard, and the practical difficulties in relation to collecting the appellant's clothing from another part of the hospital.
21. Similarly, there were inconsistencies in her evidence after her escape from the hospital. The judge does not dispute the appellant's account of her father rejecting her, but she did find the subsequent coincidences not to be credible, in particular her account of hearing someone speaking Albanian in Leicester and that woman offering assistance.
22. Overall this is a thorough and well reasoned determination. Nothing in the grounds establishes that the judge erred in respect of her assessment of credibility. It was plainly open to her to reject the account.
23. In any event, even if such an error was established, there is no challenge to the judge's conclusions that the appellant does not fall within those persons identified in TD and AD of trafficked women who would be at risk on return.
24. The appellant has no known health problems. She has been able to find assistance within her own community in the UK, and she has friends in her home area and friends in Tirana. She was educated at primary and secondary level and has a reasonable employment history. The judge's conclusion that she would not be a person vulnerable to being re-trafficked is unassailable. Even if the judge's approach to credibility had been flawed, it would not have affected her assessment of the risk factors since there is no challenge in the grounds to any of the facts as set out at paragraph 52 of the determination.

Notice of Decision
25. The original judge did not err in law. Her decision will stand.

Direction Regarding Anonymity - Rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008
Unless and until a Tribunal or court directs otherwise, the appellant is granted anonymity. No report of these proceedings shall directly or indirectly identify him or any member of their family. This direction applies both to the appellant and to the respondent. Failure to comply with this direction could lead to contempt of court proceedings.

Signed Date 26 November 2016

Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Taylor