Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2023-004974

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/58296/2021
IA/18135/2021

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS`

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 19 August 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BLUNDELL
and
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE WILDING

Between

JEVAUGHN JORDAYNE WILLIAMS
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms E Stuart-King, instructed by Owens Stevens Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr M Parvar, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 16 May 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. On 8 April 2024, we allowed the Secretary of State’s appeal against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. We found that the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Bennett) had erred in law in two respects: he had failed to make a finding as to the risk of the appellant reoffending and he had misdirected himself in finding that the public interest in the appellant’s deportation had been reduced by delay.
2. We directed that the decision on the appeal would be remade in the Upper Tribunal, with certain findings preserved. We were unable to remake the decision at that time, however, because the appellant was in prison on remand, awaiting trial for further drugs offences. We will refer to the outcome of that trial below.
3. For the reasons which follow, we have decided that the appellant’s deportation to Jamaica would not be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and that his appeal falls to be dismissed.
Background
4. The appellant is a Jamaican national who was born on 16 October 1996 and is currently 28 years old. He entered the United Kingdom with his mother in August 2001. They overstayed their limited leave to enter and remained without leave until they were granted Indefinite Leave to Remain on 5 December 2008.
The Appellant’s Antecedents
5. The appellant has committed a number of offences in the UK.
6. In December 2012, he pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited weapon, a ‘sawn-off’ shotgun, for which he received a non-custodial disposal. In February the following year, he returned to Snaresbook Crown Court, charged with possessing a knife in a public place and committing an offence while subject to a youth rehabilitation order. HHJ Wilkinson sentenced him to concurrent terms of 2 years and 12 months’ detention and training. This was subsequently reduced to a total of 18 months’ detention and training.
7. In September 2015, the appellant was cautioned by the police for possession of class A drugs.
8. On 9 July 2020, the appellant returned to Snaresbrook Crown Court again and was convicted of burglary. He was sentenced to a community order with requirements for rehabilitation activity, unpaid work and a curfew with tagging.
9. On 13 January 2023, the appellant was convicted at Wood Green Court of three counts of voyeurism and one count of possession of cannabis with intent to supply. He was sentenced to a total of sixteen months’ imprisonment, suspended for 19 months. There were also requirements to undertake unpaid work and rehabilitation activity and a requirement that he should remain on the sex offenders register for ten years.
10. The Police National Computer records that the appellant was convicted of three further counts of Voyeurism on 19 February 2024. This was disputed by the appellant at the outset of the remaking hearing. We are satisfied that there is an error on the PNC and that the only voyeurism offences for which he was convicted are those detailed above. We are grateful to Ms Stuart-King, who made enquiries of the solicitors who have consistently represented the appellant in the Crown Court. They confirmed to her that there were no such convictions in 2024.
11. On 1 May 2024, however, the appellant was convicted of a further drugs offence: the supply of a drug of Class B (cannabis) between 19 February 2023 and 9 November 2023. He was acquitted of more serious drugs offences which we need not detail here. The appellant was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for that offence, although he had already served that period on remand. The sentencing judge – Mr Recorder Osborne - also extended the suspended sentence to which the appellant was subject when he committed the offence.
12. The appellant’s final conviction was before East London Magistrates’ Court on 6 September 2024, when he pleaded guilty to a failure to comply with the notification requirements the Sex Offenders Notice.
The Respondent’s Decisions and the Appellant’s Appeals
13. The appellant has been before the Immigration and Asylum Chamber on a number of different occasions. This is his third appeal. His first was against the respondent’s decision to make a deportation order against him in 2014. That appeal was dismissed by Judge Black and permission to appeal was refused. The Secretary of State then made a deportation order against him.
14. The appellant’s solicitors made representations in support of the revocation of the order in 2017. The respondent refused to treat the representations as a fresh human rights claim. Judicial review was sought, and permission was ultimately granted by the Court of Appeal, whereupon the respondent agreed to reconsider the decision. The subsequent decision accepted that the appellant had made a fresh claim but refused it on its merits, thereby enabling the appellant to bring his second appeal.
15. The second appeal was heard by Judge Chinweze and dismissed in December 2020. Permission to appeal was refused and an attempt was made to remove the appellant on 11 August 2021. That attempt was unsuccessful because the appellant’s solicitors made representations relying in part, as it happens, on injunctive relief which had been granted by UTJ Blundell in a similar case.
16. The Secretary of State made the decision under appeal in these proceedings on 16 December 2021. He relied substantially on the findings made by Judges Black and Chinweze and concluded that the enforcement of the deportation order would not be contrary to Article 8 ECHR. There was some delay in the appeal coming before the First-tier Tribunal as a result of the offences which we have recorded at [9] above. Those offences were committed in February and July 2022 and resulted, as we have said, in convictions on 13 January 2023.
17. The instant appeal came before the First-tier Tribunal in 2023. In his reserved decision, the judge found that the appellant was unable to meet the first statutory exception to deportation because he had not been lawfully resident in the UK for most of his life. He accepted, however, that the appellant was socially and culturally integrated into the UK and that there would be very significant obstacles to his re-integration to Jamaica. It was accepted by the appellant’s counsel that he was unable to meet the second statutory exception to deportation. The judge carried those findings into his assessment of whether there were very compelling circumstances over and above those in the exceptions which sufficed to outweigh the public interest in deportation. He answered that question in the appellant’s favour, and he allowed the appeal on Article 8 ECHR grounds accordingly. The judge’s concluding remarks to the appellant were as follows:
Having seen and observed Mr W and heard him give his oral evidence, I am satisfied that, despite his history and, specifically, the offences which he committed in 2022, he genuinely regrets his past criminal misdoings and wishes to work and be a useful member of society. I was unable to tell him this at the hearing, because he had "left" the (electronic) hearing before the hearing concluded. But I asked Miss Robinson to impress on him that I had not then made up my mind as to whether the appeal should be allowed or dismissed, but that, if I were to allow the appeal, he should understand that he had succeeded by a very short head, and that, if he offended again, even in a comparatively minor manner, he should not assume that the factors which had resulted in his appeal being allowed would exempt him from deportation again. That is the position. He will now know, when he reads this determination, that, although his appeal is to be allowed, if he offends again, it is unlikely that the matters which have saved him on this occasion will save him again. The prevention of future offending by the individual concerned is not the only factor in any deportation appeal. But it is a relevant factor.
18. The Secretary of State appealed to the Upper Tribunal with permission. As we have already recorded, we allowed that appeal. Whilst we were satisfied that the judge had reached lawful conclusions in respect of many of the issues in the appeal, including the statutory exceptions to deportation, we were satisfied that he had erred: in failing to reach a finding on the likelihood of the appellant re-offending; in concluding that there had been administrative delay in the appellant’s case; and in considering the effect of any such delay on the public interest in deportation. We therefore preserved the judge’s findings in relation to the statutory exceptions to deportation and Article 8(1) ECHR, but we ordered that the decision on the appeal would be remade in relation to s117C(6) and (therefore) Article 8(2) ECHR.
The Remaking Hearing
19. Mr Parvar invited us to depart from the FtT’s finding that the appellant was socially and culturally integrated to the United Kingdom. Ms Sturt King objected to our doing so, submitting that nothing which had happened after the FtT’s decision provided a sufficient basis to revisit the finding. In light of the fact that the appellant had received a further conviction for supplying drugs during the operational part of a suspended sentence, we indicated that we were prepared to revisit the FtT’s finding.
20. Mr Parvar also invited us, at [15] of his skeleton argument, to conclude that the appellant’s behaviour cast ‘substantial doubt against the strength of his family affiliations in the United Kingdom.’ Ms Stuart-King protested that this invitation had not previously been identified by the respondent and that it was rather too late to do so in a skeleton argument which was served shortly before the hearing. In our view, she was fully justified in that submission. We indicated, however, that we would assess the strength of the appellant’s family relationships in light of the evidence we heard. We considered that it was necessary to keep an open mind on this subject, not least because the appellant had apparently been concerned in the supply of cannabis whilst resident at the family home after the decision of the FtT.
21. We ascertained that we had the correct papers. In addition to the material which had been before us at the error of law hearing, the appellant’s solicitors had belatedly filed and served a bundle of 103 pages. The bundle had been filed so late in the day that it had not reached us. Ms Stuart-King provided a copy by email and we took a little time to consider it. Both advocates had filed skeleton arguments, which we had received.
22. We heard oral evidence from the appellant and his mother. We do not propose to rehearse their oral evidence at this stage in our decision. We will refer to it insofar as it is necessary to do so to explain our findings of fact.
Submissions
23. Mr Parvar relied on his skeleton argument and submitted that the OASys report demonstrated the risk posed by the appellant. The email from his Probation Officer showed that there had been some improvement but the tribunal should still be concerned that the appellant would re-offend. Neither the threat of deportation nor the imposition of a suspended sentence had operated to prevent him committing further offences. The appellant had given evidence about the voyeurism convictions, stating that he had photographed different women in states of undress when he was delivering drugs to his customers. That was a matter of concern, as the OASys report made it clear that the appellant had photographed the same woman on two occasions. In that respect, and in respect of his cannabis dealing, he was trying to minimise the seriousness of his offending. It was clear that he had not taken full responsibility for the offences.
24. Mr Parvar submitted that the appellant was a person with a very problematic history. Every time he came before the IAC he had acquired a new conviction. It was clear that he had no regard for the law of the UK and there was proper reason to depart from the finding that he was socially and culturally integrated into the United Kingdom. The only person who had come to vouch for him was his mother. It was more likely than not that his peer group was still a negative influence. He had been using the family home as a base from which to supply drugs. He had no qualifications and no employment history. His engagement with Probation had been superficial. His protestations of remorse were not deserving of weight; he had evidently said the same to the FtT whilst he was supplying drugs. His deportation was a proportionate step and his appeal should be dismissed.
25. Ms Stuart-King relied on her skeleton argument and asked us to accept that there were two areas which required particular consideration: (i) the significance of the appellant’s additional conviction; and (ii) the circumstances which the appellant would encounter on return.
26. In relation to the further conviction, Ms Stuart-King submitted that the appellant had accepted that he was making bad decisions. He had been ‘in a bad place’ because he had received two adverse decisions from the FtT and his use of cannabis had been a maladaptive coping mechanism. It was clear that he had finally turned the corner and had left his offending behaviour behind. There had been no further offences since his release from prison in May 2024. Whilst the OASys report painted a negative picture in places, it was clear that it had been compiled at an early stage and that additions had been made subsequently. That was apparent, for example, from the use of the future tense in the sentence “Mr Williams will report to [the Probation Practitioner] weekly and each session will focus on discussing his risk factors.”
27. The Probation Officer had expressed his view on the appellant’s progress in his recent email. It was clear that he was satisfied that the appellant had made good progress and had engaged fully. He was best placed to make that assessment. Judge Wilding expressed some concern that the Probation Officer had not explained the basis on which he had departed from the assessment of risk in the OASys report. Ms Stuart-King acknowledged that, but submitted that the email was written after the appellant’s compliance with probation and that more weight should be attached to it than the OASys report.
28. Ms Stuart-King recalled that we were invited to go behind the FtT’s assessment that the appellant was socially and culturally integrated to the United Kingdom. In her submission, however, there was no evidence which justified such a departure. The appellant had stated that all of his friends had been born in the UK. He was still integrated despite his offending. Insofar as he was criticised for not working, it was to be recalled that he had not been permitted to work since the initial deportation order was made in early 2016, when he was still nineteen.
29. Also relevant to the assessment of proportionality were the circumstances of the appellant’s mother. She had a minor child with sickle cell syndrome who was regularly hospitalised. The appellant played an important role in the family and the best interests of the children would be adversely affected if he were to be deported.
30. Ms Stuart-King invited us to attach particular weight to the FtT’s conclusions about the difficulties which the appellant would encounter in Jamaica. There was no reason to revisit any of those findings, and the tribunal had not been invited to do so. The judge had accepted that the appellant would encounter very serious obstacles to his re-integration and that he would be without an income for a substantial period of time. The £1250 which he might receive by way of a resettlement package would be insufficient. He would have no support there. It would be extremely difficult for the appellant to find work. The judge had found that the appellant would be in a position of destitution. That probably sufficed to meet the Article 3 ECHR threshold as a result of R (Limbuela) v SSHD [2005] UKHL 66; [2006] 1 AC 396, and was necessarily highly relevant to the Article 8 ECHR analysis.
31. In any event, and taking all the relevant circumstances into account, it was clear that the appellant was working hard to address his behaviour and that the serious consequences of deportation on him and his family would be disproportionate.
32. We reserved our decision at the end of the submissions.
Analysis
33. This is not a case which concerns the deportation of a foreign criminal but the revocation of a deportation order which is already in force. The judge in the First-tier Tribunal structured his analysis within the framework provided by s117C of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. It has never been suggested that s117C does not apply, however, and we agree with the parties that it is appropriate for us to consider the appellant’s case within the structured approach provided by that statutory framework: NA (Pakistan) v SSHD [2016] EWCA Civ 662; [2017] 1 WLR 207, at [38].
Statutory Exceptions to Deportation – s117C(4) and (5)
34. It has been accepted from the outset that the appellant cannot meet the family life exception to deportation. He does not have a partner or a child on which to base such a submission. And he was unable to contend before the FtT or before us that he meets the private life exception to deportation because, although he has been in the United Kingdom since he was four years old, he has only had leave to remain for a little over seven years of that time: [30] of the FtT’s decision refers. There has never been any attempt to revisit that finding. We agree with it, and proceed on the same basis. It is nevertheless necessary to consider the remaining parts of s117C(4), as the judge in the FtT did.
35. The judge undertook a very detailed analysis of the question posed by s117C(4)(b), which is whether the appellant is socially and culturally integrated into this country. As we explained in the error of law decision, he took careful account of the appellant’s offending and he balanced that against the appellant’s length of residence and the other factors which told in favour of his satisfying this test. The judge considered what was said by Leggatt LJ (as he then was) at [56]-[82] of CI (Nigeria) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 2027; [2020] Imm AR 503. He reached a reasoned conclusion that the appellant was socially and culturally integrated into this country, having arrived here at the age of four, despite his offending. There was no error of law in that conclusion; it was one which was plainly open to the judge on the evidence before him.
36. Mr Parvar submits that we should reach the contrary conclusion because of the appellant’s most recent offences. As we have recorded above, we indicated at the start of the hearing that we would revisit the judge’s conclusion in light of those offences. That is obviously not to say that we set aside the judge’s carefully reasoned conclusion in that respect. It remains the decisive assessment of the appellant’s integration at the time that he decided the appeal. The question is whether the appellant’s further convictions justify our reaching a different conclusion on the question as matters stand at today’s date.
37. We accept Ms Stuart-King’s submission that the convictions for supplying cannabis and breaching the terms of the Sex Offender’s Notice on a single occasion provide insufficient justification for the course suggested by Mr Parvar. In reaching that conclusion, we have reflected carefully on the circumstances in which the offences occurred. The appellant was evidently dealing cannabis whilst he was within the operational period of a suspended sentence and whilst he was subject to deportation proceedings. His appeal was heard by the FtT on 19 October 2023 and determined on 6 November 2023. The PNC shows that the offence spanned the period 19 February 2023 to 9 November 2023. A warrant was executed on his home address three days after the FtT had allowed his appeal.
38. Whilst we consider this to be a worrying reflection on the extent to which the appellant pays any heed to the law of the United Kingdom, we do not consider it to suffice to show that he is not presently integrated to the country in which he has lived since the age of four. The questions posed by the statutory exceptions are to be answered in a binary way; a person is either socially and culturally integrated, or they are not. In our judgment, the binary answer reached by the FtT continues to hold good despite the subsequent convictions.
39. We were not invited by either side to depart from the preserved finding that the appellant would encounter very significant obstacles to integration on return to Jamaica. We will not attempt to rehearse the entirety of the reasoning deployed by the judge in support of that finding. We note, as we did in our previous decision, that the judge accepted the views expressed in a generic expert report by Luke de Noronha. He summarised the key parts of that report at [22] of his decision.
40. The judge balanced that report against what was said by the Secretary of State at [23] of his decision. He reached his own conclusions on the evidence at [35]-[40]. He accepted that the appellant’s grandmother was dead and that the appellant had no relatives living in Jamaica. Having taken account of what was said by the Secretary of State about Mr de Noronha’s report, he accepted the broad outline of the report. At [39], he reached detailed findings on matters which included the appellant’s lack of familiarity with the country which he left at the age of four; his inability to draw on any family or other support in Jamaica; his substantial disadvantage in the labour and housing markets in Jamaica; the limited amount of financial support he would receive from the Home Office; his inability to speak patois; the lack of available income support from the Jamaican government; and the lack of any realistic possibility of financial support from the UK. It was as a result of all of those concerns, and the lack of mitigations to address them, that the judge found that there would be very significant obstacles to integration. Those findings are preserved and we will carry them over in their entirety to our assessment of proportionality under s117C(6).
Very Compelling Circumstances – s117C(6) – Article 8 ECHR
41. Before we come to the assessment of proportionality, we will make clear our conclusions on the engagement of Article 8. It is plain that the appellant has a private life in the United Kingdom. As the FtT previously held, his is a case to which the observations in Maslov v Austria [2008] ECHR 546 apply. He was raised here from a young age and received the entirety of his education here. He has family in this country, including his mother and minor siblings. We accept that he also has a number of friends in the United Kingdom, even though we did not receive any oral or documentary evidence from them. We note that the First-tier Tribunal accepted that the appellant had been involved in playing community football and boxing and that he had undertaken an apprenticeship in the construction industry: [32].
42. We have recorded above that there was a suggestion in Mr Parvar’s skeleton argument that we should revisit the findings made in the previous FtT decisions about the relationship between the appellant, his mother and his sisters. We note that Mr Parvar did not develop that point in his closing submissions. There was in any event nothing in the oral evidence which would have justified a departure from the findings made by three different judges of the FtT. Judge Chinweze noted that the appellant played an important role in the lives of his sisters: [96]. For his part, Judge Bennett concluded that it was in the best interests of the appellant’s younger siblings that he remained in the United Kingdom. The judge was concerned that they would lose the benefit of his assistance and company if he were removed, and that it was of assistance to the appellant’s mother that he was able to look after his younger sibling whilst the older sibling was in hospital during a sickle cell crisis: [46]-[47]. There is no reason for us to depart from those findings, which were in any event in accordance with the view we formed of the appellant’s mother’s description of the family.
43. In carrying out the balancing exercise required by s117C(6), we adopt the balance sheet approach commended by the Supreme Court in Hesham Ali v SSHD [2016] UKSC 60; [2016] 1 WLR 4799.
44. We begin, as did the judge in the FtT, with the matters which weigh in favour of the appellant’s deportation. We see nothing wrong with the FtT’s analysis at [41]-[43]. As we have set out above, the appellant has a fairly extensive history of offending involving a variety of offences. When he first committed offences, it was connected with his membership of a gang in Hackney called the Holly Street gang. There is nothing to suggest that that association has continued.
45. There is a public interest in the appellant’s deportation because he is a foreign criminal. Section 117C(2) provides that the public interest in that course increases with the seriousness of the offences committed by the appellant. As Judge Bennett noted at [43], the previous judges in the IAC had potentially gone too far in describing the appellant’s offending as ‘extremely serious’ when the sentencing judges had used no such adjective. Judge Bennett, acting in accordance with the authorities, preferred to categorise those matters as ‘serious’, thereby using the same terminology as the sentencing judges.
46. We are bound to observe that none of the offences committed by the appellant attracted sentences which approach the higher end of the medium offender spectrum of one to four years’ imprisonment. The most serious offence was committed whilst the appellant was a child and resulted in a detention and training order of eighteen months. Whilst drugs offences have consistently been viewed by the Strasbourg Court as being at the most serious end of the criminal spectrum: Otite v The United Kingdom [2022] ECHR 748, at [49], there is a danger in applying such statements by rote without considering the facts of the offences in more detail. In this case, the appellant’s drug convictions (as distinct from the caution in 2015) concern the supply of cannabis, a drug of Class B to which the observations in cases such as Baghli v France [1999] ECHR 135 do not squarely apply. In our judgment, there is a public interest in the appellant’s deportation as a result of his historical offending but it is very far from the most powerful public interest.
47. That leads us to what we considered to be a significant omission in the decision of the FtT. Judge Bennett made no assessment of the likelihood of the appellant re-offending. That is obviously a factor in the balance, albeit that it is not the most important public interest factor in the case of very serious crimes: N (Kenya) v SSHD [2004] EWCA Civ 1094; [2004] INLR 612, at [65] and [87], per May LJ and Judge LJ respectively. We now have the benefit of evidence which was not before the FtT in reaching findings of fact on that question. In particular, we have the OASys report and the views of the appellant’s Probation Officer following his most recent offences. We also have the appellant’s oral evidence on the point.
48. The OASys report is 62 pages long. We think that Ms Stuart-King was correct to describe it in her submissions as a ‘living instrument’. She borrowed that term from Strasbourg to illustrate that the document had initially been completed shortly after the appellant’s conviction for supplying cannabis and had then been amended during his dealings with the Probation team. We accept that this must be so, because the document uses the future tense in connection with the appellant’s dealings with Probation despite the fact that it states that it was completed on 31 March 2025.
49. Overall, the OASys report paints a fairly damning picture of the appellant. The likelihood of serious reoffending in the next two years is medium. The risk of direct contact sexual reoffending is medium. The risk of serious harm to children and the public is medium, whereas the risk to known adults and staff is low.
50. It was noted in the report that the appellant had stated (as he did before us) that he was prevented from working and accessing public funds, as a result of which ‘he had to find a means to survive which is why he got involved in dealing drugs’. The Probation Officer considered that this was an attempt by the appellant to blame the Immigration Service for his offending and an indication that he had not taken full responsibility for it. The author noted that the index offence was part of an ‘established pattern’ of similar offences but that there was no escalation in seriousness. The author also referred to the voyeurism as an ‘emerging pattern of behaviour’. Sexual material found on the appellant’s mobile phone suggested that he had an interest in voyeurism and the officer noted that he had attended one woman’s address twice, which suggested that he had targeted her. The author concluded that ‘adult females in general are at risk’ and that there was a risk of escalation to sexual contact offending.
51. It was also noted that the appellant’s ‘lifestyles and associates are one of [the appellant’s] risk factors and linked to the risks of offending behaviour and serious harm.’ The appellant told the Probation Officer that he had stopped using cannabis ‘some years ago’, but the officer found that difficult to accept. Issues of emotional wellbeing and boredom were thought to be linked to the index offence, as was a desire for financial gain. It was noted that the appellant avoided attempts to explore his offending and that his engagement with the Probation Service was ‘superficial’. He was at one point said to be ‘not at all motivated to address offending behaviour’. There was thought to be ‘an imminent risk to reoffend or cause serious harm because of [the appellant’s] lack of motivation to change his lifestyle’, although the author went on to note that his level of risk would reduce if there was to be a change in his employment and financial circumstances. His positive and supportive family relationships had not prevented his offending behaviour and he lacked the motivation to change and move away from offending.
52. The officer disagreed with the actuarial risk indicators because the index offence had been committed during the suspended sentence. That indicated the appellant’s ‘disregard for the Justice System’. Pages 47 et seq of the report contained summaries of what had gone before and the officer’s plans for the future management of the appellant.
53. We also have an email from Peter Nelson, the appellant’s Probation Officer. It is addressed to the appellant’s solicitor and dated 13 May 2025. Mr Nelson states materially as follows:
Mr Williams successfully completed the probation supervision period, despite the added complexity of immigration restrictions. Throughout the duration of his supervision, he demonstrated a high level of engagement, responsibility, and commitment to positive change.
He maintained open and honest communication and there were no breaches of probation conditions. He remained law-abiding and demonstrated improved decision-making and coping strategies.
Mr Williams has shown genuine motivation to improve his life circumstances, as such, I believe that his risk of reoffending is low and would recommend that he is granted permission to stay in the UK as his family and support network are here and continued support from them will encourage him to maintain his progress.
54. We note, as Ms Stuart-King emphasised, that the appellant has not received any further convictions since his release from prison in May 2024. But we accept Mr Parvar’s submission that this email gives little indication of why the appellant is now thought to present a low risk of reoffending. The OASys report provides clear reasons for concluding that the appellant presented a medium risk of reoffending, and expressed concerns about an ‘emerging’ pattern of sexual offending. Mr Nelson’s email provides no details about any courses which the appellant is said to have undertaken and does not attempt to address the separate types of risk which were identified in the full report. We were not able to attach any significant weight to the email because it provides so little information in support of the conclusion that the risk of reoffending is now low.
55. It is in any event for the tribunal to reach its own conclusion on the risk of re-offending, taking account of all the evidence before it, including the evidence from the Probation Service and all other evidence. In our judgment, the signal feature of the appellant’s case is that he has no regard whatsoever for the law. In 2023, he offended a month after he had been given a suspended sentence. He has offended when he was subject to deportation action. Also in 2023, he offended whilst his appeal was afoot. Judge Bennett gave him a warning that even the slightest offending might tip the scales against him. That warning was issued on 6 November 2023. Three days later, the appellant was found to have been dealing cannabis up to and including 9 November 2023.
56. Before us, the appellant protested that he needed to survive and that he had been unable to do so (despite living in his mother’s house) because the Home Office did not allow him to work, and that his mental health was poor at the time. In our judgment, the appellant sought by this evidence not to accept responsibility for his actions. The account he gave was the same he had given to the Probation Service and raises the same concerns as were expressed in the OASys report.
57. The appellant stated in his oral evidence that his drug dealing was not for financial gain. He maintained that it was merely ‘social supply’ which he had undertaken purely to finance his own consumption of cannabis. We see no such indication in the OASys report. He admitted to the Probation Officer that he was financially supporting himself through the proceeds of crime. He told the Probation Officer that he was not using drugs at the time of the index offence. That is a rather different account to the one which he gave us, that the index offence was committed in order to fund the cannabis he was using at that time.
58. The appellant also told us that drinking played a part in his life ‘spiralling’ out of control from 2022 onwards. Towards the end of his cross-examination, the appellant referred to his drinking and ‘becoming someone different’ as a result. But he told the Probation Officer that he drank alcohol only occasionally and not in excessive amounts. Again, the account which we were given was designed, in our judgment, to minimise the appellant’s responsibility for his actions.
59. The appellant was surprisingly blasé about his sexual offending in his oral evidence. He said that he was not proud of what he had done, and that it was “not who I am”. He initially suggested that there were different women involved, thereby omitting to mention that he had returned to one woman’s window on two occasions, as noted in the OASys report. He demonstrated no insight into the consequences of his actions on the women concerned.
60. We consider that the appellant’s offending behaviour and his attitude to it demonstrates a real likelihood of reoffending. It is commonplace in appeals of this nature for offending behaviour to come to an end, as the sword of deportation hangs over the head of the appellant. Not so in this case. The appellant set about supplying cannabis to order whilst his appeal was afoot. His contempt for the law is unfortunately quite apparent. The appellant was not in need of money to survive, and we reject that suggestion entirely. He was living with his mother throughout and could depend on her for food and accommodation. What he wanted was spending cash, and he knew that he could obtain that by dealing drugs.
61. We do not accept that the appellant was suffering from poor mental health in 2023. We have noted what he said in his statement from October 2023 but there is no medical evidence in support of those assertions. The OASys report noted episodes of low mood but noted no psychiatric problems. We consider that the decision to supply cannabis whilst his appeal was pending was a conscious one, prompted by the appellant’s desire for financial gain, as suggested in the full OASys report.
62. We regret to say that we found the appellant’s protestations that he was a changed man entirely hollow. He gave the same account to Judge Bennett whilst he was engaged in the supply of cannabis. We do not accept that he has changed and we consider that there is an appreciable risk of further offending, in particular for financial gain. Whilst the convictions themselves give rise to a comparatively low public interest in the appellant’s deportation, therefore, the appreciable risk of him committing further offences significantly enhances the public interest in that course.
63. We balance those conclusions against the matters which weigh in favour of the appellant remaining in the United Kingdom.
64. We have taken into account in that regard the careful assessment undertaken by Judge Bennett about the important role that the appellant plays in the family, and in particular the care that he provides to his two sisters when the elder sister is hospitalised due to a sickle cell crisis. We proceed on the basis that it would be contrary to their best interests to deport the appellant, and we accept that the appellant’s deportation would cause his mother childcare difficulties, although she will manage in the appellant’s absence, as she has in the recent past. She does not work and is dedicated to caring for her children, and she will be able to do so without the appellant’s support. We nevertheless accept that his deportation would cause her, and the minor members of the family significant upset. These are primary considerations which may only be outweighed by countervailing factors of sufficient strength.
65. We also attach significance to the appellant’s private life in the UK, and to the fact that his is a case to which Maslov v Austria applies. It is clear from CI (Nigeria) v SSHD that significant importance must attach to the fact that the appellant was a settled migrant who has spent almost his whole life in the UK and grown up with a British social and cultural identity. That is a factor to which we attach considerable weight.
66. We also take careful account of the matters to which Ms Stuart-King refers at 19(v) and [24]-[27] of her skeleton argument. She invited us there, and in her oral submissions, to attach determinative significance to the fact that the appellant would be destitute on return to Jamaica. She did not positively submit that his removal would be in breach of Article 3 ECHR, but she did submit that this was a factor of overwhelming importance in the assessment of proportionality.
67. In evaluating that submission, we have reminded ourselves of the report of Dr Noronha and the conclusions reached by the judge in the First-tier Tribunal. In the interests of brevity, we will not rehearse those conclusions but we have taken careful account of them, and of the extended summary in his Ms Stuart-King’s excellent skeleton argument.
68. We do not accept that the appellant will be exposed to destitution on return, however. What the judge in the FtT left out of account was the likelihood of the appellant committing further criminal offences. We have found above that he has done so consistently despite the threat of imprisonment and deportation. In our judgment, those conclusions, which were made in respect of the likelihood of reoffending in the UK, apply equally in respect of the appellant’s likely behaviour on return to Jamaica.
69. We consider that it is more likely than not that the appellant, faced with straitened circumstances on return to Jamaica, will engage in criminality in order to support himself. He has engaged in a variety of criminal behaviours in this country, including burglary, violence and drug dealing, and he is likely to engage in similar behaviour in Jamaica, rather than attempting to enter the navigate the significant challenges of finding legitimate work. Whilst we take account of the serious difficulties which he is likely to encounter on return, therefore, we do not consider that his circumstances will be as difficult as Ms King suggested. Any such conclusion in the Noronha report and the decision of the FtT was reached without consideration of the probability of the appellant committing criminal offences in order to survive.
70. Drawing these threads together, we reach the clear conclusion that the public interest outweighs the matters on the appellant’s side of the balance sheet. He cannot meet the statutory exceptions to deportation and there are not very compelling circumstances over and above those exceptions which outweigh the public interest in that course. The appellant has lived in the UK since he was a small child and he is integrated to this country. He will encounter very significant obstacles to integration in Jamaica. His deportation is contrary to the best interests of his siblings, and will cause difficulties for his mother. These are all important considerations, as has been underlined in the authorities of the domestic and Strasbourg courts.
71. The appellant’s offending is not at the most serious end of the spectrum, as is reflected in the sentences passed by the criminal courts, but the signal feature of this case is the appellant’s lack of regard for the law. We consider it likely that he will commit further offences in the United Kingdom and we do not accept the contrary conclusion in the Probation Officer’s short email. The public interest in the appellant’s deportation is significantly enhanced as a result of the likelihood of his re-offending.
72. We consider that the public interest in the prevention of further crime outweighs the matters upon which Ms Stuart-King relied. It is evidently in the interests of the United Kingdom that the appellant is deported to Jamaica, where he will likely commit further criminal offences in order to counter the obstacles he will inevitably face, rather than committing further offences in the United Kingdom.
73. The appeal will consequently be dismissed.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal having been set aside, we remake the decision on the appeal by dismissing it.

Mark Blundell

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

29 July 2025