Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-004867

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/02179/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 26 February 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE STAMP

Between

MR ZHONG QI XIE
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr A. Swain, Counsel instructed by Lisa’s Law Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr E. Terrell, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 16 February 2026

DECISION AND REASONS
Background
1. The appellant appeals, with permission, the decision of First-tier judge Cary dated 9 September 2024 on the basis that it contains an error of law. The judge dismissed the appeal against the respondent’s refusal to grant his claim for asylum or humanitarian protection.
2. The appellant is a Chinese citizen aged 51 and claimed asylum on 22 November 2019 and says he arrived in the UK on 22 November 2002. He stated that when he was 28 the Chinese government wished to take his land for building and when he refused, he was arrested, assaulted and detained for 6 months. His father borrowed money from a loan shark to enable him to leave China and enter the UK and believes if returned to China the loan sharks would kill him and government would arrest him.
3. The respondent refused the appellant’s claim on 1 November 2023 on the basis that the underlying facts on which the appellant based his claim were not accepted due to inconsistences and lack of any corroborative evidence.
4. The judge dismissed the appeal and whilst he did not discount the possibility of the appellant’s land having been confiscated and his father obtaining a loan from loan sharks, given the lapse of time and his lack of any adverse political profile the appellant would not be at risk if returned to his home country. Additionally, the judge concluded that the appellant had not discharged the burden of proof on him to demonstrate he lived in the UK for a continuous period of at least 20 years due to inconsistences in his evidence of arrival date and employment record and placed little weight on the supporting witness statements due to their brevity and inconsistency with the appellant’s narrative. Nor did the judge consider there would be very significant obstacles to the appellant’s integration on return to China and dismissed the appeal on all grounds.
5. Permission to appeal was initially refused by First-tier judge Parkes on 5 October 2024 but was subsequently granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Sheridan on 8 November 2025 on the following basis:
“1. The appellant claims to have lived in the UK since 2002. The evidence relied on by the appellant to support this claim included a visa in his passport issued on 25 November 2002 and valid from 26 November 2002: see page 21 of the appellant’s bundle in the FTT. It appears from paragraph 45 of the decision that the judge mistakenly thought that the visa was dated 2022 and not 2002. Based on this arguable mistake of fact, the judge arguably erred by treating the visa as undermining the credibility of the appellant’s account.
2. In the light of Mr Swain’s attendance note, it is arguable that the judge mis-recorded or misunderstood the evidence of Ms Yu about the appellant’s history of working in the UK. This is arguably material to the adverse credibility findings.
3. All grounds can be pursued.”
Submissions
6. Mr Swain adopted his renewed grounds of appeal. He submitted that the judge had made three errors of law which render his decision unsafe relating to the appellant’s claim to have been in the UK continuously for 20 years. First the judge had mistakenly referred to the appellant’s visa, set out on page 58 of the consolidated bundle, as being dated 2022 when it was 2002 and at paragraph 45 of the decision this mistake contributed to the appellant‘s “remarkably inconsistent” version of his arrival in the UK. Mr Swain submitted that, absent the mistake, the appellant’s narrative on arrival should have been treated as credible given the issued visa was wholly consistent with the appellant ‘s claim of having left China and arriving in the UK in 2002.
7. The second error that the judge made was contained in paragraph 46 when he commented on the discrepancy between the appellant’s evidence that he had been working and Ms Yu’s oral evidence that he had never worked. Mr Swain’s contemporaneous note of the evidence, which is not disputed by the respondent, is that this is not an accurate summation of Ms Yu’s evidence and that, consistent with her witness statement, she had said that the appellant was not currently working. This mistake had the effect of undermining the credibility of Ms Yu’s witness evidence and at paragraph 48 the judge made adverse findings on the appellant’s credibility based on this mistaken inconsistency.
8. Finally, the judge’s rejection of Ms Yu’s and Mr Wu’s evidence, in which they confirmed they had known the appellant for over 20 years, was a material error. Both witnesses are healthy, mentally able people of the utmost good character who would readily be able to recall events from the last 20 years and to discount their evidence based on their inability to accurately recall events was irrational and unfairly undermined the judge’s conclusions on the appellant’s version of events.
9. Mr Terrell submitted that the reference to 2012 rather than 2002 was, in fact, a slip of the pen rather than a substantive error of law and looking at his decision as a whole it would have been written very differently if the judge had genuinely thought that 2022 was the correct date. In particular, a date of 2022 would have made no sense given that the appellant made his asylum claim in the UK on 22 November 2019. In any event, the visa is one to leave China rather than enter the UK which reduces its evidential weight.
10. In relation to the error made in relation to Ms Yu’s evidence Mr Terrell referred me to HK v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1037 at paragraph 45 where the court applied the “tolerably confident” test that notwithstanding the error the outcome would have been the same, which he submitted was the case in the present circumstances.
11. In relation to the evidence more generally of Ms Yu and Mr Wu the judge was entitled to placing little weight on their statements given their brevity and lack of detail.
Decision and Analysis
12. The issue which I have to determine whether is whether there is an error of law in the First-tier’s tribunal decision. If I conclude there is, I need to consider whether the error requires me to set aside that decision in whole or in part.
13. The judge correctly, at paragraph 39, states that the burden of proof, on the balance of probabilities, is on the appellant to establish that he has lived in the UK for a continuous period of at least 20 years to fall within paragraph 276ADE of the immigration rules.
14. The judge clearly sets out sets out his approach to the evidence necessary for the appellant be successful in his claim under paragraph 276ADE in paragraph 44:
“To demonstrate length of residence in the UK the Appellant needs to provide reliable evidence of his residence here. There is no mandatory requirement as to the type or duration of evidence required. Original, documentary evidence from official or independent sources, for example from a housing trust, local authority, bank, school or doctor, are likely to be given more weight in the decision-making process than unsubstantiated assertions about an applicant’s length of residence. To be satisfied that the UK residence was continuous an applicant should ideally provide evidence to cover every 12-month period of the length of claimed continuous residence, and passports or travel documents to cover the entire period although if such evidence is not available, I can consider and accept any credible explanation provided as to why this has not been submitted. I have to look at the evidence in its entirety to see if the Appellant can establish his case and I accept that those who have been here illegally may have limited or even no documentation to prove their residence here.”
15. The judge considered the considered the appellant’s visa in the following paragraph:
“As previously mentioned, the Appellant has been remarkably inconsistent in the date of his arrival in and method of travel to the United Kingdom. He has now produced a copy of vignette stating that he was given leave to enter the UK as a tourist on November 26 2022 (after he now claims to have arrived here) valid until February 25 2023 (Appellants bundle page 21). The original has not been produced and the quality of the photocopy is poor. He has never previously mentioned the existence of this document which I do not find to be in any way reliable. He has failed to produce any documentary evidence linking him to this country apart from a few recent documents. Although it appears that he now has a GP he has not even produced his medical notes and records (AS2.Q5). He is said to have registered with a GP in Nottingham in January 2020. Although I have what is described as a “chronology of events” from him that gives no indication of what he has been doing or where he has been living since the date of his arrival in the United Kingdom. All it states is that the Appellant arrived in the United Kingdom on November 22 2002 and […..] claimed asylum on November 22 2019.”
16. The judge made two factual errors in relation to the visa – the date on which it was issued, which should have been November 26, 2002, rather than 2022 and the fact that it was a visa to leave China rather than enter the UK. I have to determine whether these errors would have made a material difference to the outcome of the judge’s decision and I conclude that they do not. First the visa was to leave China rather than entry to the UK. Accordingly, if the judge had properly considered this, he would have concluded that the visa was not inconsistent with the appellant’s narrative on arrival but nor was it conclusive in his favour – it was neutral and would not have materially assisted the appellant in discharging his burden of proof given the other inconsistencies. The judge made it clear at the start of paragraph 45 that he had concerns over the veracity of the appellant’s evidence highlighting, in paragraph 31, the three different explanations as to how he arrived in the UK and the differing arrival dates in 1999 and 2002. The visa, even if properly considered, would not have addressed these inconsistencies. Nor do I accept Mr Swain’s contention that the “remarkably inconsistent” comment was attributable in whole or part to the misreading of the visa. Clearly this refers to his concerns set out in paragraph 31 which were added to by his misreading of the visa. Furthermore, the judge makes it clear that the inconsistency with the visa date was not a determinative factor in his findings on the appellant’s version of arrival – he specifically refers in paragraph 45 to lack of any documentary evidence linking the appellant to the UK, the absence of any medical records until 2020 and the thin chronology of events which provides no evidence to support the appellant’s position. Accordingly, I conclude that notwithstanding the error it would not have changed the outcome of the decision when looked at the judge’s rationale as a whole.
17. Turning to the issue of Ms Wu’s evidence it is agreed that the judge, at paragraph 46 inaccurately recorded Ms Yu as having given evidence that the appellant had never worked when, in fact, the evidence was that the appellant was not currently working. Again, the issue I have to determine is whether this error would have altered the judge’s decision and I conclude that it would not. Mr Terrell helpfully directed me to HK v Secretary of State for the Home Department where the court, at paragraph 45, made it clear that where a fact-finding tribunal has rejected evidence for a number of reasons, the mere fact that some of the reasons do not bear analysis is not, of itself, enough to justify an appellate court setting the decision aside. The relevant question is whether one can be “tolerably confident” that the decision would be the same based on the reasons that have survived scrutiny.
18. Applying that test, I can be tolerably confident that the judge’s decision would have been the same notwithstanding the inaccurate recording of Ms Yu’s evidence. The judge had little third party evidence of the appellant’s employment history since his arrival other than Mr Wu’s evidence that he worked as a cook “for the last few years” and a P60 for the tax year ending April 2023, although Mr Swain suggested, and I have no reason to disbelieve him, this was a typo and should have been 2022. I accept that the judge’s error led him to unfairly treat Ms Yu’s evidence as less credible than it should have been treated but even so, Ms Wu’s evidence taken at face value indicated very limited knowledge about the appellant’s employment history beyond finding him in a job as a cleaner in Aberdeen in 2003. Based on this evidence the judge was entitled to conclude that the appellant’s employment history did little to discharge his burden of proof of continuing residence. Mr Swain made the point that given the appellant was living “off grid” and taking temporary jobs paid in cash meant that independent evidence of his employment was hard to come by. I appreciate that may well be the case but it does not alter the position that it remains for the appellant to establish his continuing residence.
19. The final ground is that the judge unfairly disregarded the evidence of Ms Yu and Mr Wu who both gave a witness statement and oral evidence confirming that they had met the appellant in the UK in 2003 and 2004 respectively and had been in contact with him ever since.
20. The judge considered their evidence in detail in paragraph 47:
“I have considered the evidence of Ms Yu and Mr Wu including what they said in their respective statements of August 8 2024. Although both claim to have known the Appellant for a considerable period of time they give very little detail of their interaction with him in their respective statements. In his statement Mr Wu claims that he first met the Appellant in the United Kingdom in February 2004 although it seems they were previously friends in China. Even though he describes their relationship as “like brothers” his statement is remarkably brief on the level of contact they have had in the United Kingdom. Similarly, Ms Wu gives very little detail in her statement. She claims that in January 2003 the Appellant was taken to her charity looking for her help. She said she next saw him in February 2004 at a Chinese New Year celebration party. I find that evidence difficult to accept particularly as I do not know how she is able to recall events that occurred many years ago. She also claims that the Appellant has attended every single New Year celebration since then. Again, I do not know how she is able to recall that with such precision. I also consider that her credibility has been damaged by her clear assertion in evidence that the Appellant has never worked which directly contradicts what she said in her written statement. Although Mr Wu told me that he spoke to the Appellant every evening no evidence of that has been produced such as phone bills or call logs and again I do not understand how he is able to recall events that occurred many years ago such as the month and year he first met the Appellant in the United Kingdom. Although he told me that he usually sees the Appellant every 3 months (although their address is the same) he made no mention of that in his statement. All he said there was that they have kept in touch all the time. Oddly the Appellant also makes no mention of either Mr Wu or Mrs Yu in his recent statement or of attending any new year celebrations with them”.
21. My starting point is the observation made in R (Iran) v the Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] EWCA Civ 982 at paragraph 8 that a tribunal would only “ very rarely” be able to overturn a finding of fact based on oral evidence and the assessment of credibility.
22. My Swain takes issue with the manner in which the judge challenges the evidence of both witnesses in terms of their powers of recall given they were “healthy, mentally able people of the utmost good character”. This is not a fair observation. Looking at both witness statements, their brevity stands out. Mr Wu says that he and the appellant have been “in touch all the time “from 2004 and “we are like brothers” and that while jobless he stays with him. That is the entirety of his evidence. Likewise, Ms Yu says she met the appellant in 2003 and in 2004 he came to Chinese New Year Celebration party and “ ha[s] come back every year to celebrate the New Year with us” and they recently met up three months ago. Again, that is the entirety of her evidence. Given that the witnesses had known the appellant for more than 20 years it would not have been unreasonable for the judge to expect to see greater details of their interactions for such an extended period of time or how that could say with apparent certainty the appellant had not been absent from the UK during that time. Mr Swain submitted that the evidence should be taken at face value in absence of any cross examination challenging its brevity or contents but that is clearly not correct – the onus in on the appellant to establish his case not for the respondent to disprove it. The judge clearly and carefully considered all the information before him from the witnesses on this issue and concluded the brevity of their statements and lack of supporting documentation meant it did not discharge the appellant’s burden of proof of residence. It was a conclusion that the judge was fairly able to make, and I find no error of law.

Notice of Decision
For the reasons set out above, there are no errors of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and I decline to set the decision aside.

Mark Stamp

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

20 February, 2026