JR-2025-LON-000534
- Case title:
- Appellant name:
- Status of case: Unreported
- Hearing date:
- Promulgation date:
- Publication date:
- Last updated on:
- Country:
- Judges:
The decision
JR-2025-LON-000534
In the Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Judicial Review
In the matter of an application for Judicial Review
The King on the application of
MMM
Applicant
and
HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
Respondent
ORDER
BEFORE Upper Tribunal Judge Bulpitt
HAVING considered all documents lodged and having heard Mr A Mackenzie of counsel, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors, for the applicant and Mr S Hocking of counsel, instructed by Hampshire County Council, for the respondent at a hearing on 3 September 2025
IT IS DECLARED THAT:
(1) The applicant was born on 3 March 2003 and he was an adult on his arrival in the United Kingdom on 21 March 2024.
IT IS ORDERED THAT:
1. The application for judicial review is refused for the reasons given in the attached judgment.
2. There be no order as to costs.
3. There be detailed assessment of the Applicant’s publicly funded costs.
4. Permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal is refused, no application for such permission having been made, on the basis that there is no arguable error of law in the decision.
Signed: Luke Bulpitt
Upper Tribunal Judge Bulpitt
Dated: 30 September 2025
The date on which this order was sent is given below
For completion by the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber
Sent / Handed to the applicant, respondent and any interested party / the applicant's, respondent’s and any interested party’s solicitors on (date): 30/09/2025
Solicitors:
Ref No.
Home Office Ref:
Notification of appeal rights
A decision by the Upper Tribunal on an application for judicial review is a decision that disposes of proceedings.
A party may appeal against such a decision to the Court of Appeal on a point of law only. Any party who wishes to appeal should apply to the Upper Tribunal for permission, at the hearing at which the decision is given. If no application is made, the Tribunal must nonetheless consider at the hearing whether to give or refuse permission to appeal (rule 44(4B) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008).
If the Tribunal refuses permission, either in response to an application or by virtue of rule 44(4B), then the party wishing to appeal can apply for permission from the Court of Appeal itself. This must be done by filing an appellant’s notice with the Civil Appeals Office of the Court of Appeal within 28 days of the date the Tribunal’s decision on permission to appeal was sent (Civil Procedure Rules Practice Direction 52D 3.3).
Case No: JR-2025-LON-000534
IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
(IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)
Field House,
Breams Buildings
London, EC4A 1WR
30 September 2025
Before:
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BULPITT
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Between:
THE KING
on the application of
MMM
Applicant
- and -
HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
Respondent
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mr A Mackenzie
(instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors), for the applicant
Mr S Hocking
(instructed by the Hampshire County Council) for the respondent
Hearing date: 3 September 2025
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
J U D G M E N T
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Judge Bulpitt:
1. The applicant arrived in the United Kingdom on 21 March 2024. He did not have any documents to prove his identity and he did not have leave to enter the United Kingdom. He told Immigration Officers his name and said that he was born on 3 March 2007. He said he was from Darfur in Sudan and that he had travelled to the United Kingdom because he feared persecution in Sudan. The applicant’s name and nationality have been accepted and he has been granted Humanitarian Protection in the United Kingdom. His age however is disputed, with the respondent assessing his likely date of birth as 3 March 1999. The applicant challenges that assessment by Judicial Review and the issue to be determined at this fact-finding hearing is what is the applicant's probable date of birth?
Background
2. The applicant arrived in the United Kingdom as one of a number of people on a small boat that had travelled from Calais on 21 March 2024. He immediately claimed asylum and was referred to two immigration officers. Those officers undertook an initial assessment involving an interview with the applicant. In that interview the applicant said that he was 17 years old having been born on 3 March 2007. The officers however formed the opinion that his physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggested that the applicant was significantly over 18 years old. The officers concluded that the applicant’s probable date of birth was 3 March 1996.
3. The following day the applicant had a screening interview in connection with his asylum claim. He explained that he had fled Sudan in August 2022 after witnessing the murder of his father by the militia. He explained that he travelled through Chad, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Spain and France before coming to the United Kingdom. The applicant was then allocated hotel accommodation for adult asylum seekers in Basingstoke and released on immigration bail while his asylum claim was processed.
4. Five days later on 26 March 2024, the applicant was referred to the respondent by the charity Care4Calais. The respondent made an initial assessment and decided to accommodate the applicant as a child. The respondent began an investigation under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 noting that the applicant’s age will be further assessed while he was in their care. The applicant was placed in supported accommodation in Portsmouth for people aged under 18 and allocated a social worker.
5. On 15 July 2024 two social workers employed by the respondent met with the applicant with an appropriate adult and interpreter present, and undertook an assessment of his age. On 18 July 2024 the social workers again met with the applicant, the appropriate adult and interpreter for what they described as a “minded to” meeting. In that meeting they informed the applicant that on their assessment he was an adult with a date of birth of 3 March 1999. On the basis of that assessment, the applicant left the respondent’s care and moved to hotel accommodation for adult asylum seekers in London. He has been living in that accommodation since.
6. The applicant was referred to solicitors by a charity for young asylum seekers “Young Roots” and through those solicitors challenged the respondent’s age assessment by way of Judicial Review. Permission to bring judicial review proceedings was granted by Deputy Judge of the High Court Matthew Butt KC on 20 February 2025 and in line with the usual practice, the proceedings were transferred to the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal. The case was managed by way of directions sealed on 26 February 2025, 13 June 2025 and 5 August 2025 and was listed for this fact finding hearing.
7. In compliance with the directions that were issued, the parties have served an agreed bundle of evidence which consists of 394 pages, skeleton arguments and an authorities bundle. The bundle of evidence includes the applicant’s witness statements, the respondent’s age assessment and records of contact with the applicant, and the Home Office records of contact with the applicant including the initial assessment of his age on 21 March 2024. The bundle also includes the results of a proportionate search of the applicant’s social media conducted by his representatives in accordance with directions issued by the Tribunal.
8. In October 2024 the Secretary of State for the Home Department made a decision refusing the applicant refugee status but granting him Humanitarian Protection in the United Kingdom. The applicant has appealed against the refusal of refugee status and that appeal to the First-tier Tribunal is currently outstanding. There has been no suggestion that those proceedings would have any material impact on either the substance or timing of this judgment.
9. I record at this juncture my appreciation to the parties’ legal teams for their assistance in ensuring the effective conduct of this case. In particular, my gratitude to Mr Mackenzie and Mr Hocking for the constructive and sensible manner in which they have presented their respective cases.
Anonymity
10. Since the grant of permission to bring these judicial review proceedings, there has been an order prohibiting the publication of any particulars likely to lead to the identification of the applicant in place. In view of the protection issues arising in the applicant’s case I maintain that order in accordance with rule 14 of The Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008.
Legal Framework
11. The age of an asylum seeker is significant because the Local Authority in whose area the person is, typically has a duty under the Children Act 1989 to provide that person with accommodation and support if they are under the age of 18. That duty extends to further support once the person reaches the age of 18. The question of the applicant’s age therefore remains of significance even though on any account he is now an adult.
12. The issue of a person’s age is in these circumstances one of jurisdictional fact to be determined by the tribunal after consideration of all relevant evidence in the round. The nature of the tribunal’s enquiry is inquisitorial and it is inappropriate to talk of a burden of proof. The assessment required must be undertaken on its own terms weighing all relevant evidence. The tribunal is to apply the balance of probabilities to determine the applicant’s probable age and is not bound to choose one or other of the parties’ positions.
13. Other than in cases where a person is very obviously over 18 (or very obviously a child), it is necessary to take a history from the person with a view to determining whether it is true. When undertaking that assessment the primary focus is on the person’s account of his age, recognising that lies may be told for reasons unconnected to the person’s age. A person’s physical appearance and behaviour cannot be isolated from the question of the veracity of the applicant; appearance, behaviour and the credibility of a person’s account are all matters which reflect on each other. Caution should be exercised however when assessing a person’s appearance and behaviour because different people living in the same country mature physically and psychologically at different rates, and the difficulty this causes in making an assessment is compounded when the young person is of an ethnicity, culture, education and background that are foreign and unfamiliar to the decision maker. A young person’s vulnerability and the possible effect of traumatic experiences must be taken into account when assessing the veracity of the person’s account.
14. The respondent’s age assessment is an appropriate starting point for consideration of an applicant’s age because conventional judicial review principles continue to play a role when deciding the weight to be afforded to that assessment. Unfairness or public law errors in the respondent’s assessment may affect the weight given to that assessment, though the job of the tribunal remains to make a decision about the applicant’s age based on all the evidence. In most cases therefore, the hearing and the tribunal’s decision about the applicant’s age will enable the tribunal to properly consider the legal significance of any procedural flaw in the respondent’s assessment.
15. This summary of the law reflects the agreed position of the parties identified in their respective skeleton arguments and the authorities quoted within those arguments including: R (B) v London Borough of Merton [2003] EWHC 1689 (Admin) (the Merton Case), MVN v London Borough of Greenwich [2015] EWHC 1942 (Admin), R (HAM) v London Borough of Brent [2022] EWHC 1924 (Admin), AB v Kent County Council [2020] EWHC 109 (Admin), R (SB) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) [2023] EWCA Civ 924R (CJ) v Cardiff City Council [2011] EWCA Civ 1590.
Analysis of the Evidence
16. For the purpose of clarity I set out my assessment of the evidence in the following paragraphs using separate topic headings. I make clear however that I have assessed the evidence holistically.
The applicant’s account of his age
17. From the day of his arrival in the United Kingdom the applicant has consistently maintained that he was born on 3 March 2007. On his arrival in the United Kingdom he said to immigration officers that his mother had told him his date of birth when he was 14. In his witness statement for the purpose of this hearing the applicant expanded on that saying that he remembered his mother telling him his date of birth in 2021 and telling him that it was important he remembered it. He states that this conversation occurred when the authorities visited his village to take details of locals to assign them a national identification number but said that those authorities never subsequently returned.
18. Other than that conversation, the applicant’s evidence was that age was not something that was important in his culture and family. He said that most babies are not registered at birth, that birthdays are not celebrated and that there are no traditions that mark becoming certain ages. The applicant said he does not know the ages of his three siblings and when cross-examined was unable to give any indication of how much older than him his sisters were and could only say vaguely that his older brother could be ten years older than him, though he said he was unsure. When asked, he was unable to indicate whether his older brother and sisters were all older than 18 at the time he left Sudan. Neither was he able to give any detail about the age of his younger brother, beyond saying his brother was possibly one – two years younger than him.
19. I found the applicant’s vague evidence about the age of his family and his insistence that age is not something that is recognised or treated as important, impossible to reconcile with his account of being told his precise date of birth by his mother a year before he left Sudan and subsequently remembering that date of birth even though it was not something he ever needed to use. I do not find his ambiguous explanation for the conversation with his mother persuasive and find the suggestion that the applicant’s mother told him that it was important he remember his date of birth inconsistent with the rest of his evidence. I find it improbable that such a conversation occurred.
20. There were other aspects of the applicant’s account about his family life in Sudan that were also inconsistent and unconvincing. The applicant’s assertion in his witness statement that his family in Sudan do not have electricity and it is not possible to contact them, is hard to reconcile with the applicant’s Facebook account being opened while he lived in Sudan, and him posting photographs on that account of himself and a friend while he was living in Sudan. The applicant’s explanation for this in his oral evidence was that he used his older brother Ibrahim’s mobile phone while in Sudan and was able using that phone to keep in touch via Facebook with a friend who had fled Sudan in 2021. If this were the case it is hard to understand why the applicant would not similarly be able to contact Ibrahim apart from a brief conversation in 2022 using the phone of a third party.
21. The applicant’s account of leaving the holy school called a khalwa was also inconsistent. In his witness statement he said he stopped attending the school in 2015 because he did not like the way they were punished at the school. If this were correct then on his account the applicant would have been 8 when he stopped attending the school. In cross examination however, the applicant said that he was about 13 when he left the khalwa. When this contradiction was put to the applicant he said he was not sure of the date, that he was uneducated and not good at Maths and so he may have been mistaken. I found this to be a significant inconsistency indicative of a person struggling to stick to an invented account.
22. Although the applicant has consistently maintained that his date of birth is 3 March 2007 to the authorities in the United Kingdom, it is not the date of birth he has always asserted. On his arrival in the United Kingdom the applicant told Immigration Officers that a year earlier in March 2023 he had claimed asylum in Spain and had told officials there that he was twenty years old. He explained to the Immigration Officers that he did that so that the officials in Spain would let him through. In his witness statement he expanded on that explanation, stating that he was told by others that if he did not say he was an adult he might not be accepted in Spain. In cross examination the applicant said he lied about his age in Spain to stay with the group of people from his country that he was with at the time.
23. In his witness statement the applicant says that he left Spain because he did not like the way he was treated. In his asylum screening interview however the applicant said that the outcome of his asylum claims in Spain (and later in France) was refusal. The age assessment by the social workers records that the applicant also told them that he had been refused asylum in Spain and France.
24. In his witness statement the applicant says that once in France in July 2023, he claimed asylum again, telling the authorities he was 16 and that they accepted that that was his age following an age assessment that lasted approximately one hour. He continues in his witness statement to say that he was being given support as a child while in France but that he decided to leave France because he feared being returned to Spain. The social worker’s record of their age assessment however records that the applicant told them that after his asylum claim had been denied in Lille he was living on the street. In cross examination the applicant suggested that he had not taken any steps towards making an asylum claim once in France, and said that he was not sure if the French authorities accepted he was 16. He stated that no provision was made for him as a child in France so he was living under a bridge in Lille when he decided to come to the United Kingdom.
25. I found the applicant’s claim to the Spanish authorities that he was 20 years old in March 2023 to be highly significant. It was a claim made to the authorities in the applicant’s first attempt to obtain refuge from persecution. It was a claim that was accepted by those Spanish authorities and the applicant was treated as an adult whilst his asylum claim was processed by the Spanish authorities. On the applicant’s account it was a lie told for the purpose of achieving his desired outcome, which went unchallenged and undetected throughout his approximately three month stay in Spain. An alternative explanation is that it was a true account of the applicant’s age and he has subsequently changed his account about his age only after his original asylum claim was refused in Spain and France.
26. I found the applicant’s assertion that in July 2023 the French authorities found he was 16, to be inconsistent and unconvincing. He contradicted the suggestion in his witness statement that he was being supported as a child while in France, in his oral evidence and his account to the social workers when he said he was living rough in France. His account about whether he made an asylum claim in France also changed.
27. The applicant has given and maintained two different accounts about his age to officials in at least two different countries when claiming asylum. At least one of those accounts was a deliberate lie told and persisted in because the applicant thought it was be advantageous to do so. The applicant says now that he was lying to the Spanish officials but has been telling the truth to the English officials. I consider it more likely that the applicant was telling the truth when he was first asked his age having arrived in Spain and that it is the applicant’s subsequent account, given when arriving in the United Kingdom, which was the lie told for the purpose of achieving his desired outcome.
28. I find that it is likely that the applicant was telling the truth when he separately told Immigration Officers and later social workers that his asylum claim had been refused in Spain and France before he came to the United Kingdom. Having seen his asylum claim refused in Spain and France there was a clear incentive for the applicant to change his account about his age in the hope of getting a preferable outcome in the United Kingdom and in my judgment it is likely that the applicant altered his account of his age on arrival in the United Kingdom in the hope that being treated as a child would improve his prospects of being permitted to remain. If the applicant were telling the truth about his age when in Spain then both his witness statement account of leaving the khalwa in 2015 and his oral evidence that he left the khalwa when he was around 13 would both be correct.
The Immigration Officers’ age assessment
29. The first assessment of the applicant’s age to be conducted in the United Kingdom was that undertaken by the two unidentified Immigration Officers who processed the applicant following his arrival along with other migrants on a small boat on 21 March 2024. Having asked the applicant a number of questions1, those two officers rejected the applicant’s claim that he was born on 3 March 2007 and was 17 years old, and concluded that he was significantly over the age of 18 attributing to him a date of birth 3 March 1996. The unnamed officers explain that conclusion by reference to the applicant’s “established wrinkles on forehead”, “deep voice”, “mature face”, “defined jawline and cheek bones and pronounced Adams apple.” They also referred to his confidence in the presence of adults and professionals and to him being very argumentative.
30. It is apparent from this explanation that the Immigration Officers’ assessment of the applicant’s age was based almost entirely on notoriously unreliable factors of physical appearance and presentation. This is perhaps unsurprising given that the decision was made swiftly as the Officers were dealing with the applicant in difficult circumstances in a pressured environment with other new arrivals in the country. The weakness of the assessment that the applicant was significantly over the age of 18 however is apparent from the fact that just four days later, following a referral by Care4Calais to Hampshire County Council, a separate assessment concluded that there was sufficient doubt about whether the applicant was over 18 to take him into the care of the Local Authority and undertake a full assessment of his age.
31. In the circumstances I attach little weight to the opinion of the unnamed Immigration Officers about the applicant’s age. I find it was an opinion based on the unreliable assessment of the applicant after he had just completed a dangerous journey across the English Channel in a small boat. It was contradicted four days later. The evidence of the two Officers as recorded on this assessment is however relevant because it demonstrates that there has always been scepticism about the applicant’s account of his age. It is also relevant because it includes the applicant’s first recorded account of his age in this country.
The respondent’s age assessment
32. The respondent’s assessment of the applicant’s age was carried out by two social workers Sarah O’Shea and Catherine Mang’elly, four months later on 15 July 2024. There is no dispute about the fact that both are experienced social workers having 15 and 8 years post qualification experience respectively at the time they undertook the assessment. Neither is there any dispute about the fact that their experience included relevant work supporting unaccompanied asylum seeking children from countries including Sudan. Both had undertaken age assessment training relatively shortly before the assessment of the applicant and both had experience of conducting “Merton compliant” assessments in the past.
33. Whilst he did not dispute the experience or training of Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly, Mr Mackenzie submitted that the training had not had the desired effect because their assessment of the applicant was procedurally flawed. I agree that there were failings in the procedure adopted by Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly and find that these failings reduce the weight that can be attached to their assessment of the applicant’s age.
34. The primary criticism Mr Mackenzie makes about the assessment is that it did not involve an effective “minded to” procedure whereby the applicant was told that the social workers were minded to conclude that he was lying about his age and given an opportunity to respond to that indication before a final decision was taken. Such a procedure was recognised in the Merton case to be part of a fair process of age assessment. Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly were clearly aware of this requirement as they make reference in their assessment to a “minded to” process2.
35. The “minded to” process they adopted however was flawed. The Age Assessment document records that following the interview with the applicant on 15 July 2024, he returned with an appropriate adult and interpreter to meet Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly on 18 July 2024. At the outset of the second meeting the applicant was asked if he wanted to add anything to the assessment and asked if he wanted to provide any further evidence. When he replied negatively to both questions he was told that “if you have nothing more to add, then we can continue to provide you with our outcome”. At this point the applicant said that all dates he had given were estimates and that when he left Sudan he was the youngest of the group who travelled and they looked after him. The Social Workers record that they then took 5 minutes before returning and telling the applicant that the outcome of their assessment was that his date of birth was not as he claimed but was 3 March 1999. In doing so they explained that they had taken account of his demeanour, presentation and time line and in particular his independence and life skills at the time of his journey to the United Kingdom, which they considered to be inconsistent with his stated age.
36. It is clear from this record that the procedure adopted did not allow for the applicant to respond to the social workers’ provisional view before a final decision was reached. The applicant was not given an opportunity to address the assessors’ concerns about his account before they made their final decision in the way anticipated in the Merton case. To this extent the process followed was flawed. I take this into account and consider that it reduces the weight that can be attached to the assessment of the applicant’s age by Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly.
37. Further, although they do say elsewhere in the document that they took account of evidence from the support workers at the accommodation where the applicant was living between 26 March 2025 and 18 July 2024, Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly do not make reference to that evidence in the analysis and conclusions section of their Age Assessment document. I analyse the support workers’ evidence later under a different topic heading. I record here however that it is not possible to discern from the decision what part the support workers account played in Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly’s assessment or why they ultimately rejected that evidence. This is a fact which further reduces the weight to be attached to the opinions of the assessors.
38. A further flaw in the evidence of the assessment they undertook which undermines the assessment of Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly is the absence of a verbatim note of the interview they conducted with the applicant on 15 July 2024. In the Merton case it was observed (at [54]) that such a note would “enable the court to be more confident” in its assessment of the process that was followed by the social workers. The absence of such a note in this case reduces my confidence that the process adopted was comprehensive.
39. In the “Analysis and Conclusions” section of the “Age Assessment” document Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly explain their conclusion that the applicant was 25 years old with a date of birth of 3 March 1999 under two headings “Presentation and Demeanour” and “Journey”.
40. With regards his presentation and demeanour Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly record that while the applicant spoke with a soft tone most of the time he would become louder and deeper in his voice when talking about subjects like his journey to the United Kingdom and that he was confident to challenge them when discussing the geography of his journey and places visited. They note that in this way he presented as a young adult and not a child. Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly also record that the applicant does not have any child like features and that he presents as a man in his mid-twenties. Elsewhere in the assessment they refer to his “prominent Adams apple”, “defined jawline”, indications that he was shaving and his “build of a male well past puberty.”
41. I recognise that there is a limit to the reasoning that can be given to justify an overall evaluation of a person’s appearance and appreciate that the evaluative conclusion that someone looks like an adult is not always capable of logical demonstration. However, I do not consider the vague reference to the applicant not having any child like features or to him changing his tone when speaking about particular topics to be particularly persuasive factors as pointing toward the applicant being 25 rather than 18. It is significant that Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly say they have particular experience of working with children and young adults from North East Africa and so I do give some weight to their evaluation but I remind myself of the notorious unreliability of an age assessment based on someone’s physical appearance in isolation.
42. I found Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly’s assessment of the applicant’s account of his journey to the United Kingdom far more persuasive. Their assessment was that the journey involved the applicant showing a level of independence, confidence and skill that is not consistent with him being 15 when the journey began as he claims. They comment that the applicant talked about taking the lead in decisions around different parts of the journey, how he managed financially and note that he was able to describe how he made decisions independent of adult guidance and support about the different routes available to him. It is in this part of their assessment that the extensive experience that Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly have of engaging with children and young adults is of particular relevance. As trained and experienced social workers they were well placed to assess the applicant’s account of his journey and his decision making within the journey and to compare the level of independence he demonstrated with others of the age the applicant claims to be.
43. The applicant’s account of his journey from Sudan to the United Kingdom was explored at length in cross examination and in my judgment it does indicate that far from the applicant being under the direction of other older people as he claims in his witness statement, throughout the arduous journey the applicant demonstrated independence and autonomous decision making which was indicative of him being an adult. That independent decision making began with the applicant’s decision to leave Sudan, which he accepted in cross examination was contrary to the wishes of his Uncle who had told the applicant to stay with contacts in Nyala. It was evident in his account of the work he did in Libya, the decision to go through Morocco rather than by sea from Libya and why he decided to move on from Spain.
44. Overall therefore, while I conclude that procedural flaws reduce the weight I can give to the assessment of Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly, I do still attach some weight to their observations about the applicant’s demeanour during interview and his physical appearance, noting that these are notoriously unreliable indicators of age. I give greater weight to Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly’s assessment that the applicant’s account of his journey was inconsistent with his claimed age. This assessment came as a result of years of experience in dealing with children and young men, including asylum seekers from North East Africa, which will have left them well placed to gauge the degree of independence the applicant showed on his journey to the United Kingdom. On this basis I attach some weight to their conclusion that the applicant was probably born on 3 March 1999.
Social Services Records
45. While the applicant was in the respondent’s care between 26 March 2024 and 18 July 2024 documents were created concerning the regular reviews involving an Independent Reviewing Officer to which he was subject, and regular visits made to the applicant by his social worker. It is apparent from this documentation and in particular the Children and Family Assessment that was begun on 4 April 20243 that it was identified at the time he was taken into the respondent’s care that further assessments were needed to ascertain the applicant’s age. The assertion in the applicant’s skeleton argument that the applicant spent three months in the respondent’s care without anyone suggesting he might not be a child is therefore not correct. Whilst the applicant was treated as a child by the respondent throughout the almost four months he was in their care, it was evidently on the understanding that a full assessment of his age was necessary.
46. It is recorded in the note of the first meeting between the applicant and his social worker on 12 April 2024 that the applicant’s main concern was that he did not have a phone. It was also noted that when the applicant was told that he would be getting £56 for a phone he challenged that and said that he couldn’t buy anything for that amount of money. In the next recorded meeting between the applicant and his social worker twelve days later on 24 April 2024 it is recorded that the applicant had bought a phone that cost £290 using the £56 allowance he was given for the purpose of buying a phone, plus money he had saved from his personal allowance and €100 he had brought with him from France.
47. I find the applicant’s behaviour with regard to getting a phone as soon as he arrived in the United Kingdom, his insistence on getting a phone of a higher value than the allowance he was given and his ability to fund that higher value purchase from money he saved in just two weeks and money he brought with him from France, to be further indications of the applicant’s independent decision making and confidence plus a resourcefulness which, as the social workers identified, suggest he was at that time an adult rather than his claimed age.
Support worker’s evidence
48. Within the “Age Assessment” document prepared by Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly they record opinions about the applicant’s age that were provided to them from three employees at the supported accommodation where the applicant lived between 26 April 2024 and 18 July 2024. The opinion of the supported accommodation manager was that the applicant displays similar behaviours to his housemates who are all under the age of 18 and that the applicant was himself still under 18. Shepherd Nyoni, the applicant’s support worker, is recorded as saying that he worked with the applicant four days per week and that the applicant’s behaviour is not typical of an adult, his comprehension of life problems are not typical of someone beyond the age of 18 and he shares his housemates’ interests and hobbies. Mr Nyoni is recorded as being convinced that the applicant is not an adult. A third person named Grace, a support worker in the home, is simply recorded as saying that she believes the applicant is under the age of 18.
49. No further evidence from these witnesses has been adduced, meaning I am left with these very limited second hand accounts that Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly record in their Age Assessment document and without a full explanation for why the support workers reached the conclusions they did. Whilst this evidence arises from a professional enquiry and there is no reason to doubt its integrity, the fact remains that the accounts from these witnesses are sparse. It is also relevant that they were opinions formed specifically in the setting of accommodation for people under the age of 18 and not as part of a holistic assessment of the applicant’s age. In all these circumstances, although I give some weight to the evidence of the three support workers, their evidence is of limited weight.
The applicant’s social media
50. In accordance with directions issued by the Tribunal, on 18 March 2025 the applicant met with his representatives to conduct a proportionate search of his social media accounts. The applicant now acknowledges that immediately before that meeting and having heard that the contents of his social media accounts would be revealed to the tribunal, he changed the date of birth that was recorded on his Facebook account so that it matched the date of birth he gave on his arrival to the United Kingdom. In his addendum statement he says he is unable to recall what was the previous date of birth on his Facebook account, but recognises that the previous date of birth would have indicated he is older than he says he is. He explains the previous date of birth saying this his friend set up the Facebook account using a false date of birth because the applicant was too young to legitimately have a Facebook account when it was set up. The applicant’s solicitor says in a statement that it is not possible to discover now what was the previous date of birth on the applicant’s Facebook account.
51. When he was asked about changing the date of birth on his Facebook account in cross examination, the applicant pointed out that there were other things on the Facebook account that he did not change, such as the name on the account which is not his name. The Facebook account also records that the applicant works as a software engineer and that he attended high school in Zalingeri. He explained to his solicitor that these were details he added to his account though they were not true because it was his dream to attend that school and do that job. It is noteworthy that these were details that the applicant added to his Facebook account and not details that his friend inputted when setting up the account. Whatever the truth of them the addition of this information by the applicant to his Facebook account indicates a proficiency with Facebook and an attention to the content of his Facebook profile which is inconsistent with the applicant’s suggestion that he simply followed the guidance of his friend.
52. I find the applicant’s actions altering the date of birth on his Facebook account when he knew that it would be revealed to the tribunal to be highly significant as it demonstrates a willingness to conceal and mislead. Given the fact that the previous date of birth was recorded on the account for approximately four years and he would have seen it when altering the date of birth immediately before meeting with his solicitor, I do not accept the applicant’s assertion that he cannot remember what date of birth was previously recorded on the account. I consider his failure to provide the details of that date of birth to be a further illustration of his willingness to conceal. Whilst I acknowledge that it is not uncommon for young teenagers to use false dates of birth to set up social media accounts, the applicant’s protracted use of a different date of birth on his social media is highly relevant when assessing the veracity of his latest claim about his age. At the very least it further demonstrates that the applicant is prepared to claim to be a different age if he considers that it will help him get what he wants. More likely however, the applicant’s desire to prevent the tribunal from knowing the date of birth that was recorded reveals a wish to conceal the truth about his age.
53. Although the full record of the applicant’s Facebook account amounting to 7678 pages has been disclosed to the respondent, very few of those pages have been adduced as evidence before me. Those pages that have been adduced however, include photographs that are highly relevant and significant, particularly since they are records that were created independently of the age assessments that have taken place and without any thought that they might be used for that purpose.
54. A screenshot from the applicant’s Facebook account reveals that on 27 October 2021 the applicant updated his profile picture.4 The applicant’s solicitor says in his statement that this profile picture was a photograph of the applicant in Nyala. The applicant however said that this was wrong and the photograph was of him in his home village. Whichever account is correct and wherever it was taken this photograph was taken by 27 October 2021 at the latest i.e. at a time when on the applicant’s account he was 14 years old.
55. Likewise, a screenshot from the applicant’s Facebook account records that on 8 November 2021 the applicant posted a photograph on his Facebook account with the caption saying he is feeling happy in Oujda Morocco.5 The same photograph was used to update the applicant’s “cover photo” on 13 July 2023.6 In cross examination the applicant said that this photograph of him with his friend had been taken near his home village sometime in 2020 or 2021 (he could not be sure) but that he posted it on 8 November 2021 with the tag that he was in Morocco because on that day he heard that his friend in the photograph had arrived in Morocco. On the applicant’s account therefore he was aged either 13 or 14 at the time this photograph was taken.
56. A further screenshot from the applicant’s Facebook account records that on 21 April 2023 he again updated his profile picture.7 When I asked him about this photograph of the applicant and two others, the applicant said that he took it using a friend’s phone while they were in Libya, sent it to his Facebook account and then, when he was in Spain in April 2023, used a friend’s phone to update his Facebook account with the picture. On the applicant’s account he arrived in Libya in approximately August 2022 and he left before March 2023, meaning on the applicant’s account he was 15 at the time this photograph was taken.
57. Mr Mackenzie urged me to be cautious about drawing conclusions as to the applicant’s age in these photographs and I recognise that photographs are less reliable indicators of a person’s age than face to face contact, which itself is notoriously unreliable. Notwithstanding this however, these photographs are significant because they show the applicant at a far younger age than when he was assessed by the Immigration Officers and Social Workers. At the time the photograph posted on 8 November 2021 was taken in either 2020 or 2021, the applicant was either 13 / 14 on his account or 21 / 22 on the assessment of the social workers. It is trite to say that the difference in appearance between a 13 year old and a 21 year old is far more pronounced than the difference between a 16 year old and a 24 year old. Despite the obvious limitations of a photograph when assessing a person’s age therefore, the fact that these photographs show the applicant much earlier in time is something to which I attach significant weight.
58. Looking at the three photographs on the applicant’s Facebook account it is clear in my judgment that they are far more consistent with the social worker’s assessment of the applicant’s age than the applicant’s claimed age. In particular the photographs posted on 27 October 2021 and 8 November 2021 are not consistent with the applicant being only 14 years old at the time they were taken.
59. The fact the applicant was able to and did add details about working as a Software engineer from 2023 which was clearly not something his friend recorded when setting up the account, indicates that the applicant is not as naïve about Facebook as he claims in his witness statement. This became clearer in his oral evidence when he described using the phones of friends to update his Facebook account during his journey to the United Kingdom.
Conclusions on the applicant's age
60. Bringing this all together, I recognise that appearance and demeanour in isolation are notoriously unreliable indicators of a person's precise age, but they cannot be isolated from the question of the veracity of the applicant’s account. As the Merton case recognised, appearance, behaviour and the credibility of his account are all factors which reflect on each other.
61. In terms of the applicant’s appearance, I find the photographs posted in October and November 2021 to be most significant evidence. Exercising appropriate caution when assessing the applicant’s appearance in the photographs, I find those photographs show a person who is at least close to adulthood and that the photographs are not consistent with the applicant being 13 or 14 years old at the time they were taken, as the applicant claims.
62. By the time the applicant was seen by the Immigration Officers and later Social Workers he was on his account close to being an adult making it far more difficult to draw firm conclusions of the applicant’s age based on his appearance. I therefore give very little weight to the Immigration Officer’s assessment that the applicant was 28 in March 2024 and only limited weight to the Social Workers’ assessment of the applicant’s physical appearance.
63. I attach more weight to the Social Workers’ assessment of the applicant’s behaviour when making the long and arduous journey to the United Kingdom. I agree with their assessment that the applicant demonstrated a level of independence, confidence and skill that is not consistent with him being 15 when the journey began as he claims. I further find that the applicant’s behaviour having arrived in the United Kingdom when sourcing very quickly a mobile phone for a greater price than the allowance he was given for that phone, through savings and money he brought from Europe to be further indicators of an independence of decision making and resourcefulness that is more consistent with him being an adult than the age he claims.
64. Whilst I recognise the evidence of the support workers about the applicant’s behaviour in their presence during his time in the respondent’s care, the evidence from those support workers is sparse and they did not have the advantage of considering all the evidence about the applicant’s age holistically. I give some weight to their evidence but do not place a great deal of reliance on this evidence.
65. Most significantly however I find that the applicant has not given a credible account of his age. He has not been consistent about his age, telling the authorities in Spain that he was 20 years old in March 2023 and the authorities in the United Kingdom that he was 17 years old in March 2024. The applicant’s evidence about events in France was inconsistent and he altered his account about an age assessment and support he received while he was in that country. He has also taken steps to conceal evidence about his age by altering the date of birth recorded on his Facebook account when he knew that that information would reach the tribunal. Whilst I recognise that people tell lies for different reasons, the applicant’s willingness to conceal and to mislead about his age if he considers it advantageous to do so is clear and it significantly undermines the claims about his age he made to me.
66. Weighing all this evidence holistically, I find that the applicant’s most likely date of birth is 3 March 2003. I find that the applicant was most likely to be telling the truth about his age when he first claimed asylum telling the Spanish authorities that he was 20. I find that he was not being truthful when he told the United Kingdom authorities in March 2024 that he was 17, but that he gave this age because having seen his asylum claims being refused in Spain and France because he considered it advantageous to give a false date of birth.
67. A date of birth of 3 March 2003 makes sense of the applicant’s evidence in his witness statement that he left school in 2015, and his oral evidence that he was about 13 when he left school. It is consistent with the photographs taken in 2020 / 2021 which show a person at least close to being an adult when they were taken and not a child of 13 / 14 years old. It is consistent with him being a young adult when leaving Sudan and making his own independent decisions about his journey to the United Kingdom and with the independence of mind he has shown since arriving in the United Kingdom.
68. I therefore find that the applicant’s probable date of birth is 3 March 2003 meaning he was 21 years old when he arrived in the United Kingdom and 22 years old at the date of hearing.
Disposal
69. The parties are invited to draw up an Order which reflects the terms of this judgment. The Order should address any ancillary matters, including any application for permission to appeal and costs.
Direction Regarding Anonymity – Rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008
Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the applicant is granted anonymity.
No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the applicant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the applicant without his express consent. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.”
Signed: Luke Bulpitt
Upper Tribunal Judge Bulpitt
~~~~0~~~~
In the Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Judicial Review
In the matter of an application for Judicial Review
The King on the application of
MMM
Applicant
and
HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
Respondent
ORDER
BEFORE Upper Tribunal Judge Bulpitt
HAVING considered all documents lodged and having heard Mr A Mackenzie of counsel, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors, for the applicant and Mr S Hocking of counsel, instructed by Hampshire County Council, for the respondent at a hearing on 3 September 2025
IT IS DECLARED THAT:
(1) The applicant was born on 3 March 2003 and he was an adult on his arrival in the United Kingdom on 21 March 2024.
IT IS ORDERED THAT:
1. The application for judicial review is refused for the reasons given in the attached judgment.
2. There be no order as to costs.
3. There be detailed assessment of the Applicant’s publicly funded costs.
4. Permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal is refused, no application for such permission having been made, on the basis that there is no arguable error of law in the decision.
Signed: Luke Bulpitt
Upper Tribunal Judge Bulpitt
Dated: 30 September 2025
The date on which this order was sent is given below
For completion by the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber
Sent / Handed to the applicant, respondent and any interested party / the applicant's, respondent’s and any interested party’s solicitors on (date): 30/09/2025
Solicitors:
Ref No.
Home Office Ref:
Notification of appeal rights
A decision by the Upper Tribunal on an application for judicial review is a decision that disposes of proceedings.
A party may appeal against such a decision to the Court of Appeal on a point of law only. Any party who wishes to appeal should apply to the Upper Tribunal for permission, at the hearing at which the decision is given. If no application is made, the Tribunal must nonetheless consider at the hearing whether to give or refuse permission to appeal (rule 44(4B) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008).
If the Tribunal refuses permission, either in response to an application or by virtue of rule 44(4B), then the party wishing to appeal can apply for permission from the Court of Appeal itself. This must be done by filing an appellant’s notice with the Civil Appeals Office of the Court of Appeal within 28 days of the date the Tribunal’s decision on permission to appeal was sent (Civil Procedure Rules Practice Direction 52D 3.3).
Case No: JR-2025-LON-000534
IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
(IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)
Field House,
Breams Buildings
London, EC4A 1WR
30 September 2025
Before:
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BULPITT
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Between:
THE KING
on the application of
MMM
Applicant
- and -
HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
Respondent
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mr A Mackenzie
(instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors), for the applicant
Mr S Hocking
(instructed by the Hampshire County Council) for the respondent
Hearing date: 3 September 2025
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
J U D G M E N T
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Judge Bulpitt:
1. The applicant arrived in the United Kingdom on 21 March 2024. He did not have any documents to prove his identity and he did not have leave to enter the United Kingdom. He told Immigration Officers his name and said that he was born on 3 March 2007. He said he was from Darfur in Sudan and that he had travelled to the United Kingdom because he feared persecution in Sudan. The applicant’s name and nationality have been accepted and he has been granted Humanitarian Protection in the United Kingdom. His age however is disputed, with the respondent assessing his likely date of birth as 3 March 1999. The applicant challenges that assessment by Judicial Review and the issue to be determined at this fact-finding hearing is what is the applicant's probable date of birth?
Background
2. The applicant arrived in the United Kingdom as one of a number of people on a small boat that had travelled from Calais on 21 March 2024. He immediately claimed asylum and was referred to two immigration officers. Those officers undertook an initial assessment involving an interview with the applicant. In that interview the applicant said that he was 17 years old having been born on 3 March 2007. The officers however formed the opinion that his physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggested that the applicant was significantly over 18 years old. The officers concluded that the applicant’s probable date of birth was 3 March 1996.
3. The following day the applicant had a screening interview in connection with his asylum claim. He explained that he had fled Sudan in August 2022 after witnessing the murder of his father by the militia. He explained that he travelled through Chad, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Spain and France before coming to the United Kingdom. The applicant was then allocated hotel accommodation for adult asylum seekers in Basingstoke and released on immigration bail while his asylum claim was processed.
4. Five days later on 26 March 2024, the applicant was referred to the respondent by the charity Care4Calais. The respondent made an initial assessment and decided to accommodate the applicant as a child. The respondent began an investigation under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 noting that the applicant’s age will be further assessed while he was in their care. The applicant was placed in supported accommodation in Portsmouth for people aged under 18 and allocated a social worker.
5. On 15 July 2024 two social workers employed by the respondent met with the applicant with an appropriate adult and interpreter present, and undertook an assessment of his age. On 18 July 2024 the social workers again met with the applicant, the appropriate adult and interpreter for what they described as a “minded to” meeting. In that meeting they informed the applicant that on their assessment he was an adult with a date of birth of 3 March 1999. On the basis of that assessment, the applicant left the respondent’s care and moved to hotel accommodation for adult asylum seekers in London. He has been living in that accommodation since.
6. The applicant was referred to solicitors by a charity for young asylum seekers “Young Roots” and through those solicitors challenged the respondent’s age assessment by way of Judicial Review. Permission to bring judicial review proceedings was granted by Deputy Judge of the High Court Matthew Butt KC on 20 February 2025 and in line with the usual practice, the proceedings were transferred to the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal. The case was managed by way of directions sealed on 26 February 2025, 13 June 2025 and 5 August 2025 and was listed for this fact finding hearing.
7. In compliance with the directions that were issued, the parties have served an agreed bundle of evidence which consists of 394 pages, skeleton arguments and an authorities bundle. The bundle of evidence includes the applicant’s witness statements, the respondent’s age assessment and records of contact with the applicant, and the Home Office records of contact with the applicant including the initial assessment of his age on 21 March 2024. The bundle also includes the results of a proportionate search of the applicant’s social media conducted by his representatives in accordance with directions issued by the Tribunal.
8. In October 2024 the Secretary of State for the Home Department made a decision refusing the applicant refugee status but granting him Humanitarian Protection in the United Kingdom. The applicant has appealed against the refusal of refugee status and that appeal to the First-tier Tribunal is currently outstanding. There has been no suggestion that those proceedings would have any material impact on either the substance or timing of this judgment.
9. I record at this juncture my appreciation to the parties’ legal teams for their assistance in ensuring the effective conduct of this case. In particular, my gratitude to Mr Mackenzie and Mr Hocking for the constructive and sensible manner in which they have presented their respective cases.
Anonymity
10. Since the grant of permission to bring these judicial review proceedings, there has been an order prohibiting the publication of any particulars likely to lead to the identification of the applicant in place. In view of the protection issues arising in the applicant’s case I maintain that order in accordance with rule 14 of The Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008.
Legal Framework
11. The age of an asylum seeker is significant because the Local Authority in whose area the person is, typically has a duty under the Children Act 1989 to provide that person with accommodation and support if they are under the age of 18. That duty extends to further support once the person reaches the age of 18. The question of the applicant’s age therefore remains of significance even though on any account he is now an adult.
12. The issue of a person’s age is in these circumstances one of jurisdictional fact to be determined by the tribunal after consideration of all relevant evidence in the round. The nature of the tribunal’s enquiry is inquisitorial and it is inappropriate to talk of a burden of proof. The assessment required must be undertaken on its own terms weighing all relevant evidence. The tribunal is to apply the balance of probabilities to determine the applicant’s probable age and is not bound to choose one or other of the parties’ positions.
13. Other than in cases where a person is very obviously over 18 (or very obviously a child), it is necessary to take a history from the person with a view to determining whether it is true. When undertaking that assessment the primary focus is on the person’s account of his age, recognising that lies may be told for reasons unconnected to the person’s age. A person’s physical appearance and behaviour cannot be isolated from the question of the veracity of the applicant; appearance, behaviour and the credibility of a person’s account are all matters which reflect on each other. Caution should be exercised however when assessing a person’s appearance and behaviour because different people living in the same country mature physically and psychologically at different rates, and the difficulty this causes in making an assessment is compounded when the young person is of an ethnicity, culture, education and background that are foreign and unfamiliar to the decision maker. A young person’s vulnerability and the possible effect of traumatic experiences must be taken into account when assessing the veracity of the person’s account.
14. The respondent’s age assessment is an appropriate starting point for consideration of an applicant’s age because conventional judicial review principles continue to play a role when deciding the weight to be afforded to that assessment. Unfairness or public law errors in the respondent’s assessment may affect the weight given to that assessment, though the job of the tribunal remains to make a decision about the applicant’s age based on all the evidence. In most cases therefore, the hearing and the tribunal’s decision about the applicant’s age will enable the tribunal to properly consider the legal significance of any procedural flaw in the respondent’s assessment.
15. This summary of the law reflects the agreed position of the parties identified in their respective skeleton arguments and the authorities quoted within those arguments including: R (B) v London Borough of Merton [2003] EWHC 1689 (Admin) (the Merton Case), MVN v London Borough of Greenwich [2015] EWHC 1942 (Admin), R (HAM) v London Borough of Brent [2022] EWHC 1924 (Admin), AB v Kent County Council [2020] EWHC 109 (Admin), R (SB) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) [2023] EWCA Civ 924R (CJ) v Cardiff City Council [2011] EWCA Civ 1590.
Analysis of the Evidence
16. For the purpose of clarity I set out my assessment of the evidence in the following paragraphs using separate topic headings. I make clear however that I have assessed the evidence holistically.
The applicant’s account of his age
17. From the day of his arrival in the United Kingdom the applicant has consistently maintained that he was born on 3 March 2007. On his arrival in the United Kingdom he said to immigration officers that his mother had told him his date of birth when he was 14. In his witness statement for the purpose of this hearing the applicant expanded on that saying that he remembered his mother telling him his date of birth in 2021 and telling him that it was important he remembered it. He states that this conversation occurred when the authorities visited his village to take details of locals to assign them a national identification number but said that those authorities never subsequently returned.
18. Other than that conversation, the applicant’s evidence was that age was not something that was important in his culture and family. He said that most babies are not registered at birth, that birthdays are not celebrated and that there are no traditions that mark becoming certain ages. The applicant said he does not know the ages of his three siblings and when cross-examined was unable to give any indication of how much older than him his sisters were and could only say vaguely that his older brother could be ten years older than him, though he said he was unsure. When asked, he was unable to indicate whether his older brother and sisters were all older than 18 at the time he left Sudan. Neither was he able to give any detail about the age of his younger brother, beyond saying his brother was possibly one – two years younger than him.
19. I found the applicant’s vague evidence about the age of his family and his insistence that age is not something that is recognised or treated as important, impossible to reconcile with his account of being told his precise date of birth by his mother a year before he left Sudan and subsequently remembering that date of birth even though it was not something he ever needed to use. I do not find his ambiguous explanation for the conversation with his mother persuasive and find the suggestion that the applicant’s mother told him that it was important he remember his date of birth inconsistent with the rest of his evidence. I find it improbable that such a conversation occurred.
20. There were other aspects of the applicant’s account about his family life in Sudan that were also inconsistent and unconvincing. The applicant’s assertion in his witness statement that his family in Sudan do not have electricity and it is not possible to contact them, is hard to reconcile with the applicant’s Facebook account being opened while he lived in Sudan, and him posting photographs on that account of himself and a friend while he was living in Sudan. The applicant’s explanation for this in his oral evidence was that he used his older brother Ibrahim’s mobile phone while in Sudan and was able using that phone to keep in touch via Facebook with a friend who had fled Sudan in 2021. If this were the case it is hard to understand why the applicant would not similarly be able to contact Ibrahim apart from a brief conversation in 2022 using the phone of a third party.
21. The applicant’s account of leaving the holy school called a khalwa was also inconsistent. In his witness statement he said he stopped attending the school in 2015 because he did not like the way they were punished at the school. If this were correct then on his account the applicant would have been 8 when he stopped attending the school. In cross examination however, the applicant said that he was about 13 when he left the khalwa. When this contradiction was put to the applicant he said he was not sure of the date, that he was uneducated and not good at Maths and so he may have been mistaken. I found this to be a significant inconsistency indicative of a person struggling to stick to an invented account.
22. Although the applicant has consistently maintained that his date of birth is 3 March 2007 to the authorities in the United Kingdom, it is not the date of birth he has always asserted. On his arrival in the United Kingdom the applicant told Immigration Officers that a year earlier in March 2023 he had claimed asylum in Spain and had told officials there that he was twenty years old. He explained to the Immigration Officers that he did that so that the officials in Spain would let him through. In his witness statement he expanded on that explanation, stating that he was told by others that if he did not say he was an adult he might not be accepted in Spain. In cross examination the applicant said he lied about his age in Spain to stay with the group of people from his country that he was with at the time.
23. In his witness statement the applicant says that he left Spain because he did not like the way he was treated. In his asylum screening interview however the applicant said that the outcome of his asylum claims in Spain (and later in France) was refusal. The age assessment by the social workers records that the applicant also told them that he had been refused asylum in Spain and France.
24. In his witness statement the applicant says that once in France in July 2023, he claimed asylum again, telling the authorities he was 16 and that they accepted that that was his age following an age assessment that lasted approximately one hour. He continues in his witness statement to say that he was being given support as a child while in France but that he decided to leave France because he feared being returned to Spain. The social worker’s record of their age assessment however records that the applicant told them that after his asylum claim had been denied in Lille he was living on the street. In cross examination the applicant suggested that he had not taken any steps towards making an asylum claim once in France, and said that he was not sure if the French authorities accepted he was 16. He stated that no provision was made for him as a child in France so he was living under a bridge in Lille when he decided to come to the United Kingdom.
25. I found the applicant’s claim to the Spanish authorities that he was 20 years old in March 2023 to be highly significant. It was a claim made to the authorities in the applicant’s first attempt to obtain refuge from persecution. It was a claim that was accepted by those Spanish authorities and the applicant was treated as an adult whilst his asylum claim was processed by the Spanish authorities. On the applicant’s account it was a lie told for the purpose of achieving his desired outcome, which went unchallenged and undetected throughout his approximately three month stay in Spain. An alternative explanation is that it was a true account of the applicant’s age and he has subsequently changed his account about his age only after his original asylum claim was refused in Spain and France.
26. I found the applicant’s assertion that in July 2023 the French authorities found he was 16, to be inconsistent and unconvincing. He contradicted the suggestion in his witness statement that he was being supported as a child while in France, in his oral evidence and his account to the social workers when he said he was living rough in France. His account about whether he made an asylum claim in France also changed.
27. The applicant has given and maintained two different accounts about his age to officials in at least two different countries when claiming asylum. At least one of those accounts was a deliberate lie told and persisted in because the applicant thought it was be advantageous to do so. The applicant says now that he was lying to the Spanish officials but has been telling the truth to the English officials. I consider it more likely that the applicant was telling the truth when he was first asked his age having arrived in Spain and that it is the applicant’s subsequent account, given when arriving in the United Kingdom, which was the lie told for the purpose of achieving his desired outcome.
28. I find that it is likely that the applicant was telling the truth when he separately told Immigration Officers and later social workers that his asylum claim had been refused in Spain and France before he came to the United Kingdom. Having seen his asylum claim refused in Spain and France there was a clear incentive for the applicant to change his account about his age in the hope of getting a preferable outcome in the United Kingdom and in my judgment it is likely that the applicant altered his account of his age on arrival in the United Kingdom in the hope that being treated as a child would improve his prospects of being permitted to remain. If the applicant were telling the truth about his age when in Spain then both his witness statement account of leaving the khalwa in 2015 and his oral evidence that he left the khalwa when he was around 13 would both be correct.
The Immigration Officers’ age assessment
29. The first assessment of the applicant’s age to be conducted in the United Kingdom was that undertaken by the two unidentified Immigration Officers who processed the applicant following his arrival along with other migrants on a small boat on 21 March 2024. Having asked the applicant a number of questions1, those two officers rejected the applicant’s claim that he was born on 3 March 2007 and was 17 years old, and concluded that he was significantly over the age of 18 attributing to him a date of birth 3 March 1996. The unnamed officers explain that conclusion by reference to the applicant’s “established wrinkles on forehead”, “deep voice”, “mature face”, “defined jawline and cheek bones and pronounced Adams apple.” They also referred to his confidence in the presence of adults and professionals and to him being very argumentative.
30. It is apparent from this explanation that the Immigration Officers’ assessment of the applicant’s age was based almost entirely on notoriously unreliable factors of physical appearance and presentation. This is perhaps unsurprising given that the decision was made swiftly as the Officers were dealing with the applicant in difficult circumstances in a pressured environment with other new arrivals in the country. The weakness of the assessment that the applicant was significantly over the age of 18 however is apparent from the fact that just four days later, following a referral by Care4Calais to Hampshire County Council, a separate assessment concluded that there was sufficient doubt about whether the applicant was over 18 to take him into the care of the Local Authority and undertake a full assessment of his age.
31. In the circumstances I attach little weight to the opinion of the unnamed Immigration Officers about the applicant’s age. I find it was an opinion based on the unreliable assessment of the applicant after he had just completed a dangerous journey across the English Channel in a small boat. It was contradicted four days later. The evidence of the two Officers as recorded on this assessment is however relevant because it demonstrates that there has always been scepticism about the applicant’s account of his age. It is also relevant because it includes the applicant’s first recorded account of his age in this country.
The respondent’s age assessment
32. The respondent’s assessment of the applicant’s age was carried out by two social workers Sarah O’Shea and Catherine Mang’elly, four months later on 15 July 2024. There is no dispute about the fact that both are experienced social workers having 15 and 8 years post qualification experience respectively at the time they undertook the assessment. Neither is there any dispute about the fact that their experience included relevant work supporting unaccompanied asylum seeking children from countries including Sudan. Both had undertaken age assessment training relatively shortly before the assessment of the applicant and both had experience of conducting “Merton compliant” assessments in the past.
33. Whilst he did not dispute the experience or training of Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly, Mr Mackenzie submitted that the training had not had the desired effect because their assessment of the applicant was procedurally flawed. I agree that there were failings in the procedure adopted by Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly and find that these failings reduce the weight that can be attached to their assessment of the applicant’s age.
34. The primary criticism Mr Mackenzie makes about the assessment is that it did not involve an effective “minded to” procedure whereby the applicant was told that the social workers were minded to conclude that he was lying about his age and given an opportunity to respond to that indication before a final decision was taken. Such a procedure was recognised in the Merton case to be part of a fair process of age assessment. Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly were clearly aware of this requirement as they make reference in their assessment to a “minded to” process2.
35. The “minded to” process they adopted however was flawed. The Age Assessment document records that following the interview with the applicant on 15 July 2024, he returned with an appropriate adult and interpreter to meet Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly on 18 July 2024. At the outset of the second meeting the applicant was asked if he wanted to add anything to the assessment and asked if he wanted to provide any further evidence. When he replied negatively to both questions he was told that “if you have nothing more to add, then we can continue to provide you with our outcome”. At this point the applicant said that all dates he had given were estimates and that when he left Sudan he was the youngest of the group who travelled and they looked after him. The Social Workers record that they then took 5 minutes before returning and telling the applicant that the outcome of their assessment was that his date of birth was not as he claimed but was 3 March 1999. In doing so they explained that they had taken account of his demeanour, presentation and time line and in particular his independence and life skills at the time of his journey to the United Kingdom, which they considered to be inconsistent with his stated age.
36. It is clear from this record that the procedure adopted did not allow for the applicant to respond to the social workers’ provisional view before a final decision was reached. The applicant was not given an opportunity to address the assessors’ concerns about his account before they made their final decision in the way anticipated in the Merton case. To this extent the process followed was flawed. I take this into account and consider that it reduces the weight that can be attached to the assessment of the applicant’s age by Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly.
37. Further, although they do say elsewhere in the document that they took account of evidence from the support workers at the accommodation where the applicant was living between 26 March 2025 and 18 July 2024, Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly do not make reference to that evidence in the analysis and conclusions section of their Age Assessment document. I analyse the support workers’ evidence later under a different topic heading. I record here however that it is not possible to discern from the decision what part the support workers account played in Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly’s assessment or why they ultimately rejected that evidence. This is a fact which further reduces the weight to be attached to the opinions of the assessors.
38. A further flaw in the evidence of the assessment they undertook which undermines the assessment of Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly is the absence of a verbatim note of the interview they conducted with the applicant on 15 July 2024. In the Merton case it was observed (at [54]) that such a note would “enable the court to be more confident” in its assessment of the process that was followed by the social workers. The absence of such a note in this case reduces my confidence that the process adopted was comprehensive.
39. In the “Analysis and Conclusions” section of the “Age Assessment” document Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly explain their conclusion that the applicant was 25 years old with a date of birth of 3 March 1999 under two headings “Presentation and Demeanour” and “Journey”.
40. With regards his presentation and demeanour Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly record that while the applicant spoke with a soft tone most of the time he would become louder and deeper in his voice when talking about subjects like his journey to the United Kingdom and that he was confident to challenge them when discussing the geography of his journey and places visited. They note that in this way he presented as a young adult and not a child. Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly also record that the applicant does not have any child like features and that he presents as a man in his mid-twenties. Elsewhere in the assessment they refer to his “prominent Adams apple”, “defined jawline”, indications that he was shaving and his “build of a male well past puberty.”
41. I recognise that there is a limit to the reasoning that can be given to justify an overall evaluation of a person’s appearance and appreciate that the evaluative conclusion that someone looks like an adult is not always capable of logical demonstration. However, I do not consider the vague reference to the applicant not having any child like features or to him changing his tone when speaking about particular topics to be particularly persuasive factors as pointing toward the applicant being 25 rather than 18. It is significant that Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly say they have particular experience of working with children and young adults from North East Africa and so I do give some weight to their evaluation but I remind myself of the notorious unreliability of an age assessment based on someone’s physical appearance in isolation.
42. I found Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly’s assessment of the applicant’s account of his journey to the United Kingdom far more persuasive. Their assessment was that the journey involved the applicant showing a level of independence, confidence and skill that is not consistent with him being 15 when the journey began as he claims. They comment that the applicant talked about taking the lead in decisions around different parts of the journey, how he managed financially and note that he was able to describe how he made decisions independent of adult guidance and support about the different routes available to him. It is in this part of their assessment that the extensive experience that Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly have of engaging with children and young adults is of particular relevance. As trained and experienced social workers they were well placed to assess the applicant’s account of his journey and his decision making within the journey and to compare the level of independence he demonstrated with others of the age the applicant claims to be.
43. The applicant’s account of his journey from Sudan to the United Kingdom was explored at length in cross examination and in my judgment it does indicate that far from the applicant being under the direction of other older people as he claims in his witness statement, throughout the arduous journey the applicant demonstrated independence and autonomous decision making which was indicative of him being an adult. That independent decision making began with the applicant’s decision to leave Sudan, which he accepted in cross examination was contrary to the wishes of his Uncle who had told the applicant to stay with contacts in Nyala. It was evident in his account of the work he did in Libya, the decision to go through Morocco rather than by sea from Libya and why he decided to move on from Spain.
44. Overall therefore, while I conclude that procedural flaws reduce the weight I can give to the assessment of Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly, I do still attach some weight to their observations about the applicant’s demeanour during interview and his physical appearance, noting that these are notoriously unreliable indicators of age. I give greater weight to Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly’s assessment that the applicant’s account of his journey was inconsistent with his claimed age. This assessment came as a result of years of experience in dealing with children and young men, including asylum seekers from North East Africa, which will have left them well placed to gauge the degree of independence the applicant showed on his journey to the United Kingdom. On this basis I attach some weight to their conclusion that the applicant was probably born on 3 March 1999.
Social Services Records
45. While the applicant was in the respondent’s care between 26 March 2024 and 18 July 2024 documents were created concerning the regular reviews involving an Independent Reviewing Officer to which he was subject, and regular visits made to the applicant by his social worker. It is apparent from this documentation and in particular the Children and Family Assessment that was begun on 4 April 20243 that it was identified at the time he was taken into the respondent’s care that further assessments were needed to ascertain the applicant’s age. The assertion in the applicant’s skeleton argument that the applicant spent three months in the respondent’s care without anyone suggesting he might not be a child is therefore not correct. Whilst the applicant was treated as a child by the respondent throughout the almost four months he was in their care, it was evidently on the understanding that a full assessment of his age was necessary.
46. It is recorded in the note of the first meeting between the applicant and his social worker on 12 April 2024 that the applicant’s main concern was that he did not have a phone. It was also noted that when the applicant was told that he would be getting £56 for a phone he challenged that and said that he couldn’t buy anything for that amount of money. In the next recorded meeting between the applicant and his social worker twelve days later on 24 April 2024 it is recorded that the applicant had bought a phone that cost £290 using the £56 allowance he was given for the purpose of buying a phone, plus money he had saved from his personal allowance and €100 he had brought with him from France.
47. I find the applicant’s behaviour with regard to getting a phone as soon as he arrived in the United Kingdom, his insistence on getting a phone of a higher value than the allowance he was given and his ability to fund that higher value purchase from money he saved in just two weeks and money he brought with him from France, to be further indications of the applicant’s independent decision making and confidence plus a resourcefulness which, as the social workers identified, suggest he was at that time an adult rather than his claimed age.
Support worker’s evidence
48. Within the “Age Assessment” document prepared by Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly they record opinions about the applicant’s age that were provided to them from three employees at the supported accommodation where the applicant lived between 26 April 2024 and 18 July 2024. The opinion of the supported accommodation manager was that the applicant displays similar behaviours to his housemates who are all under the age of 18 and that the applicant was himself still under 18. Shepherd Nyoni, the applicant’s support worker, is recorded as saying that he worked with the applicant four days per week and that the applicant’s behaviour is not typical of an adult, his comprehension of life problems are not typical of someone beyond the age of 18 and he shares his housemates’ interests and hobbies. Mr Nyoni is recorded as being convinced that the applicant is not an adult. A third person named Grace, a support worker in the home, is simply recorded as saying that she believes the applicant is under the age of 18.
49. No further evidence from these witnesses has been adduced, meaning I am left with these very limited second hand accounts that Ms O’Shea and Ms Mang’elly record in their Age Assessment document and without a full explanation for why the support workers reached the conclusions they did. Whilst this evidence arises from a professional enquiry and there is no reason to doubt its integrity, the fact remains that the accounts from these witnesses are sparse. It is also relevant that they were opinions formed specifically in the setting of accommodation for people under the age of 18 and not as part of a holistic assessment of the applicant’s age. In all these circumstances, although I give some weight to the evidence of the three support workers, their evidence is of limited weight.
The applicant’s social media
50. In accordance with directions issued by the Tribunal, on 18 March 2025 the applicant met with his representatives to conduct a proportionate search of his social media accounts. The applicant now acknowledges that immediately before that meeting and having heard that the contents of his social media accounts would be revealed to the tribunal, he changed the date of birth that was recorded on his Facebook account so that it matched the date of birth he gave on his arrival to the United Kingdom. In his addendum statement he says he is unable to recall what was the previous date of birth on his Facebook account, but recognises that the previous date of birth would have indicated he is older than he says he is. He explains the previous date of birth saying this his friend set up the Facebook account using a false date of birth because the applicant was too young to legitimately have a Facebook account when it was set up. The applicant’s solicitor says in a statement that it is not possible to discover now what was the previous date of birth on the applicant’s Facebook account.
51. When he was asked about changing the date of birth on his Facebook account in cross examination, the applicant pointed out that there were other things on the Facebook account that he did not change, such as the name on the account which is not his name. The Facebook account also records that the applicant works as a software engineer and that he attended high school in Zalingeri. He explained to his solicitor that these were details he added to his account though they were not true because it was his dream to attend that school and do that job. It is noteworthy that these were details that the applicant added to his Facebook account and not details that his friend inputted when setting up the account. Whatever the truth of them the addition of this information by the applicant to his Facebook account indicates a proficiency with Facebook and an attention to the content of his Facebook profile which is inconsistent with the applicant’s suggestion that he simply followed the guidance of his friend.
52. I find the applicant’s actions altering the date of birth on his Facebook account when he knew that it would be revealed to the tribunal to be highly significant as it demonstrates a willingness to conceal and mislead. Given the fact that the previous date of birth was recorded on the account for approximately four years and he would have seen it when altering the date of birth immediately before meeting with his solicitor, I do not accept the applicant’s assertion that he cannot remember what date of birth was previously recorded on the account. I consider his failure to provide the details of that date of birth to be a further illustration of his willingness to conceal. Whilst I acknowledge that it is not uncommon for young teenagers to use false dates of birth to set up social media accounts, the applicant’s protracted use of a different date of birth on his social media is highly relevant when assessing the veracity of his latest claim about his age. At the very least it further demonstrates that the applicant is prepared to claim to be a different age if he considers that it will help him get what he wants. More likely however, the applicant’s desire to prevent the tribunal from knowing the date of birth that was recorded reveals a wish to conceal the truth about his age.
53. Although the full record of the applicant’s Facebook account amounting to 7678 pages has been disclosed to the respondent, very few of those pages have been adduced as evidence before me. Those pages that have been adduced however, include photographs that are highly relevant and significant, particularly since they are records that were created independently of the age assessments that have taken place and without any thought that they might be used for that purpose.
54. A screenshot from the applicant’s Facebook account reveals that on 27 October 2021 the applicant updated his profile picture.4 The applicant’s solicitor says in his statement that this profile picture was a photograph of the applicant in Nyala. The applicant however said that this was wrong and the photograph was of him in his home village. Whichever account is correct and wherever it was taken this photograph was taken by 27 October 2021 at the latest i.e. at a time when on the applicant’s account he was 14 years old.
55. Likewise, a screenshot from the applicant’s Facebook account records that on 8 November 2021 the applicant posted a photograph on his Facebook account with the caption saying he is feeling happy in Oujda Morocco.5 The same photograph was used to update the applicant’s “cover photo” on 13 July 2023.6 In cross examination the applicant said that this photograph of him with his friend had been taken near his home village sometime in 2020 or 2021 (he could not be sure) but that he posted it on 8 November 2021 with the tag that he was in Morocco because on that day he heard that his friend in the photograph had arrived in Morocco. On the applicant’s account therefore he was aged either 13 or 14 at the time this photograph was taken.
56. A further screenshot from the applicant’s Facebook account records that on 21 April 2023 he again updated his profile picture.7 When I asked him about this photograph of the applicant and two others, the applicant said that he took it using a friend’s phone while they were in Libya, sent it to his Facebook account and then, when he was in Spain in April 2023, used a friend’s phone to update his Facebook account with the picture. On the applicant’s account he arrived in Libya in approximately August 2022 and he left before March 2023, meaning on the applicant’s account he was 15 at the time this photograph was taken.
57. Mr Mackenzie urged me to be cautious about drawing conclusions as to the applicant’s age in these photographs and I recognise that photographs are less reliable indicators of a person’s age than face to face contact, which itself is notoriously unreliable. Notwithstanding this however, these photographs are significant because they show the applicant at a far younger age than when he was assessed by the Immigration Officers and Social Workers. At the time the photograph posted on 8 November 2021 was taken in either 2020 or 2021, the applicant was either 13 / 14 on his account or 21 / 22 on the assessment of the social workers. It is trite to say that the difference in appearance between a 13 year old and a 21 year old is far more pronounced than the difference between a 16 year old and a 24 year old. Despite the obvious limitations of a photograph when assessing a person’s age therefore, the fact that these photographs show the applicant much earlier in time is something to which I attach significant weight.
58. Looking at the three photographs on the applicant’s Facebook account it is clear in my judgment that they are far more consistent with the social worker’s assessment of the applicant’s age than the applicant’s claimed age. In particular the photographs posted on 27 October 2021 and 8 November 2021 are not consistent with the applicant being only 14 years old at the time they were taken.
59. The fact the applicant was able to and did add details about working as a Software engineer from 2023 which was clearly not something his friend recorded when setting up the account, indicates that the applicant is not as naïve about Facebook as he claims in his witness statement. This became clearer in his oral evidence when he described using the phones of friends to update his Facebook account during his journey to the United Kingdom.
Conclusions on the applicant's age
60. Bringing this all together, I recognise that appearance and demeanour in isolation are notoriously unreliable indicators of a person's precise age, but they cannot be isolated from the question of the veracity of the applicant’s account. As the Merton case recognised, appearance, behaviour and the credibility of his account are all factors which reflect on each other.
61. In terms of the applicant’s appearance, I find the photographs posted in October and November 2021 to be most significant evidence. Exercising appropriate caution when assessing the applicant’s appearance in the photographs, I find those photographs show a person who is at least close to adulthood and that the photographs are not consistent with the applicant being 13 or 14 years old at the time they were taken, as the applicant claims.
62. By the time the applicant was seen by the Immigration Officers and later Social Workers he was on his account close to being an adult making it far more difficult to draw firm conclusions of the applicant’s age based on his appearance. I therefore give very little weight to the Immigration Officer’s assessment that the applicant was 28 in March 2024 and only limited weight to the Social Workers’ assessment of the applicant’s physical appearance.
63. I attach more weight to the Social Workers’ assessment of the applicant’s behaviour when making the long and arduous journey to the United Kingdom. I agree with their assessment that the applicant demonstrated a level of independence, confidence and skill that is not consistent with him being 15 when the journey began as he claims. I further find that the applicant’s behaviour having arrived in the United Kingdom when sourcing very quickly a mobile phone for a greater price than the allowance he was given for that phone, through savings and money he brought from Europe to be further indicators of an independence of decision making and resourcefulness that is more consistent with him being an adult than the age he claims.
64. Whilst I recognise the evidence of the support workers about the applicant’s behaviour in their presence during his time in the respondent’s care, the evidence from those support workers is sparse and they did not have the advantage of considering all the evidence about the applicant’s age holistically. I give some weight to their evidence but do not place a great deal of reliance on this evidence.
65. Most significantly however I find that the applicant has not given a credible account of his age. He has not been consistent about his age, telling the authorities in Spain that he was 20 years old in March 2023 and the authorities in the United Kingdom that he was 17 years old in March 2024. The applicant’s evidence about events in France was inconsistent and he altered his account about an age assessment and support he received while he was in that country. He has also taken steps to conceal evidence about his age by altering the date of birth recorded on his Facebook account when he knew that that information would reach the tribunal. Whilst I recognise that people tell lies for different reasons, the applicant’s willingness to conceal and to mislead about his age if he considers it advantageous to do so is clear and it significantly undermines the claims about his age he made to me.
66. Weighing all this evidence holistically, I find that the applicant’s most likely date of birth is 3 March 2003. I find that the applicant was most likely to be telling the truth about his age when he first claimed asylum telling the Spanish authorities that he was 20. I find that he was not being truthful when he told the United Kingdom authorities in March 2024 that he was 17, but that he gave this age because having seen his asylum claims being refused in Spain and France because he considered it advantageous to give a false date of birth.
67. A date of birth of 3 March 2003 makes sense of the applicant’s evidence in his witness statement that he left school in 2015, and his oral evidence that he was about 13 when he left school. It is consistent with the photographs taken in 2020 / 2021 which show a person at least close to being an adult when they were taken and not a child of 13 / 14 years old. It is consistent with him being a young adult when leaving Sudan and making his own independent decisions about his journey to the United Kingdom and with the independence of mind he has shown since arriving in the United Kingdom.
68. I therefore find that the applicant’s probable date of birth is 3 March 2003 meaning he was 21 years old when he arrived in the United Kingdom and 22 years old at the date of hearing.
Disposal
69. The parties are invited to draw up an Order which reflects the terms of this judgment. The Order should address any ancillary matters, including any application for permission to appeal and costs.
Direction Regarding Anonymity – Rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008
Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the applicant is granted anonymity.
No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the applicant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the applicant without his express consent. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.”
Signed: Luke Bulpitt
Upper Tribunal Judge Bulpitt
~~~~0~~~~