PA/01165/2016

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The decision


Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: PA/01165/2016


THE IMMIGRATION ACTS


Heard at Field House
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 31 October 2016
On 2 November 2016


Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE
John FREEMAN

Between

[D G]
appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent


Representation:

For the appellant: Gordon Lee (counsel instructed by Tuckers)
For the Respondent: Mr Keith Norton

DECISION AND REASONS

This is an appeal by [DG], who was born in Albania on 3 February 1998 against a decision of Judge Peter Herbert OBE sitting at Hendon on 18 July. The appellant left Albania, according to the Home Office summary of his movements, on 12 February 2014 for Milan and was not recorded as returning there; but on his case, following the declaration of a blood feud in March 2015, he arrived here on 22 April last year by lorry in this country from the port of D?rres, and it was on 23 April that he claimed asylum. The Home Office eventually got around to refusing that claim on 20 January this year.

2. The appellant gave an account of his own movements in his witness statement, and at paragraph 69 he mentions that his brother had returned to Albania from 10 to 19 June last year. However, when the judge came to sum up the appellant's case at paragraph 7 of his decision, he unfortunately misread that as referring to the appellant himself, and in his conclusions at paragraph 23 he went on to say this: "The travel patterns of the appellant himself showed that he has left and re-entered Albania since 2013 and that strongly suggests that it is not an active feud."

3. In the face of that conclusion it is quite clear that the judge's error of fact on the appellant's movements was a material one, and Mr Norton does not suggest otherwise. The decision will have to be remade. There will be a fresh hearing in the First-tier Tribunal, not before Judge Herbert.

Appeal allowed: decision to be re-made
Fresh first-tier hearing, not before Judge Herbert


(a judge of the Upper Tribunal)