Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-004948

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/54899/2023
LP/02689/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
17th June 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN

Between

CR
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr G Hodgetts of Counsel, instructed by the South West London Law Centres
For the Respondent: Ms S Rushforth, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre on 16 April 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity.

No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant appeals against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s refusal of his protection and human rights claim. That claim in essence arose from his claimed fear of being targeted in Jamaica by the One Order Gang, his family there having been targeted by the Gang.

2. The First-tier Tribunal Judge (‘the judge’) found the appellant’s account to be so vague and inconsistent as to be unbelievable, and was unpersuaded that, if any of the appellant’s relatives had been killed, they had been because of their familial connections as opposed to their own criminal activities. Even if relatives had been killed because of criminal activities, the appellant had not been so involved and there were other family members living in Jamaica who had not been the subject of gang reprisals. The judge doubted that there had been an attack on the family home and that those family members had gone into witness protection.

3. The appellant’s grounds of appeal to this Tribunal can be summarised thus. The judge had failed to take into account that the key facts were not disputed by the respondent. The judge was wrong to find the appellant vague in naming the One Order Gang as the source of risk. The judge misunderstood which family members had been murdered and when. The judge failed to take into account the steps taken by and on behalf of the appellant to confirm that the appellant’s sister was in the Witness Protection Programme. Permission was granted on all grounds by Upper Tribunal Judge Grey.

4. At the hearing, Ms Rushforth conceded that the judge had erred in her approach to assessing the appellant’s credibility. However, and notwithstanding an apparent failure by the respondent to file and serve a rule 24 reply, Ms Rushforth argued that the error was immaterial; the judge had made safe (and unchallenged) findings that he would not in any event be at risk and, in the alternative, on sufficiency of protection and internal relocation.

5. Mr Hodgetts argued that those findings were dependent on the judge’s credibility findings; given the respondent’s acceptance that those were unsafe, none of the judge’s findings could stand.

Consideration

6. The respondent’s concession was well made. The judge had overlooked the fact that the core elements of the appellant’s account (the murder of ‘[R]’, the attack on the family home and family members present there, and the placement of family members into witness protection) were not challenged by the respondent, had misunderstood the appellant’s evidence about the appellant’s family he claimed had been murdered because of gang retribution and when (including the fact that he had never relied on the murder of ‘[B]’ for his asylum claim), and had given no apparent consideration to the attempts made to verify that the appellant’s sister remained in Witness protection. I agree therefore that the judge’s findings on the credibility of the appellant’s account of events in Jamaica involved the making of an error of law.

7. In assessing whether the judge’s conclusions on risk, sufficiency of protection and internal relocation were safe notwithstanding her erroneous approach to rejecting the appellant’s account of events in Jamaica, and therefore that the conceded error was immaterial, it is useful to consider in full [57] – [63]:

57. I also note within the terms of the OASys Report that at the time he was in prison, the appellant’s family occasionally sent him money. It is not, therefore, the case that he was without family members to assist him. Further, there are clearly family members who have provided the appellant with formal documentation and press reports sent from Jamaica. Again, this does not accord with his claim to have nobody to whom he could turn for assistance in Jamaica. I consider that the appellant has a large extended family in Jamaica with whom he maintains contact.

58. I have considered the appellant’s claims, internally discrepant though they are, within the context of the background evidence. I accept that there is some consistency in the account with the situation with regard to gang activity in Jamaica. I have had regard to the country guidance case of AB (Protection – criminal gangs – internal relocation) Jamaica CG [2007] UKAIT 00018. Whilst that case is now some years old, it was found that the authorities in Jamaica are in general willing and able to provide effective protection. However, those who are not reasonably likely to be admitted into witness protection would not normally receive effective protection in their home area if targeted by a criminal gang.

59. I accept the evidence of Dr Noronha, who I consider to be suitably qualified and experienced in the field to provide an expert opinion, that the appellant’s account is plausible and consistent with the background evidence. That is not, however, to say that the account is internally consistent or, indeed, plausible when considered as a whole. I also note that Dr Noronha is under the impression that the appellant “clearly identifies the group as the One Order Gang” which is not, in fact, the manner in which he gave evidence before me. Further, the appellant has described numerous members of his extended family, including a brother who was a pastor in Jamaica and has only recently decided to move to the United States of America, who do not appear to have been targeted by gangs. If this family were at risk as described, I would find it highly unlikely that members of the family could continue to live there unmolested. Further, I find it unlikely that the appellant would be known to any gang members since, in fact, he has been living in the United Kingdom, largely without leave to remain, since 1996. It is unclear how he would be identified, particularly if he chose to relocate away from areas where he has family members.

60. The appellant is not without employable skills or, indeed, qualifications. I accept that he may wish to return to an area where he has family members but I do not follow the line of reasoning which indicates that if he returned to family members in his former community that he would be “hypervisible” and thus at risk of being identified and attacked. If the family members with whom he chose to go and seek assistance on return were not attacked in the time they, too, have been living in the community then I can find no reason for the appellant to be attacked. I consider the statement of Dr Noronha of this appellant falling into homelessness to be speculative; based, as it is, on his experience of those deported to Jamaica without family networks. I do not find this appellant is in that position.

61. The appellant has exhibited, to the offender management professionals who have been engaged in his rehabilitation, an admirable work ethic. He was in employment at the time he committed the murder and, indeed, has subsequently developed further skills and qualifications which would, I find, assist him in finding some suitable employment. I do not accept the suggestion of Dr Noronha that this appellant would be at a risk of homelessness or destitution so as to put him at risk of violence and criminality in a more general form.

62. The report of Dr Blake also confirms the activities of criminal gangs in Jamaica and I accept that he, too, is suitably qualified and experienced to offer an expert opinion. However, again, I do not consider that it has been established that there is a real risk this appellant would be specifically targeted because of his familial ties. There are family members who have been living in Jamaica without being targeted in the manner this appellant claims would happen to him. Further, I have had considerable doubts with regard to the credibility of the account in view of the discrepancies outlined above. Both of the expert reports do, and, indeed, it is not a matter for which I criticise them, assume that the account of the appellant is true and then consider the risk to him on that basis. I have not been persuaded on the lower standard applicable that this appellant’s account is true notwithstanding the consistency of the appellant’s account with the background evidence in view of numerous inconsistencies and the vague nature of the account.

63. Even if, which I reject, the appellant’s brothers have been shot due to their involvement in criminal gangs, this appellant has not been involved in criminal gangs and there are other family members living in Jamaica who have not been attacked in any form of reprisal due to familial connections. I have considerable doubts with regard to the account of the attack on the family home and the claim that family members have gone into witness protection; not least since that account is undermined by the description of the nature of witness protection in the email from an expert. There are also discrepancies between the account of the appellant’s mother in her statement and the account of the appellant’s sister in her statement which, in of themselves, may well be down to different perceptions of events but, read as a whole and considered in the round, give me further cause for concern.

8. The judge accepts at [59] the expertise of Dr Noronha. However, it is clear from the remainder of that paragraph that she rejects his opinion on risk for the following reasons: because she has rejected the credibility of the appellant’s account of events and circumstances in Jamaica; because the appellant has ‘numerous family members’ who have lived unmolested in Jamaica; and because it is ‘unclear’ how the appellant would be identified, having lived in the United Kingdom since 1996, particularly if he relocated away from family members. Indeed, it appears from [62] that the principal reason for the judge’s rejection of not only Dr Noronha’s opinion on risk but also that of Dr Blake is her rejection of the appellant’s account.

9. That reason is, given the judge’s erroneous approach to credibility, unsustainable. The second reason overlooks the appellant’s consistent assertion that it is only his mother’s side of the family (and not his step-siblings) who are at risk from the One Order Gang. The third reason runs counter (without any adequate reason given) to the opinion of Dr Noronha on internal relocation. All in all, I cannot be satisfied that the judge would necessarily have found that the appellant would not be at risk from the One Order Gang had she taken a permissible approach to credibility.

10. The judge’s implicit finding at [63] that the appellant would not be at risk, ‘even if’ his brothers had been shot due to their involvement with criminal gangs, is still apparently predicated on rejection of the family home having been attacked and his mother and half-sister having been attacked. In short, it is a finding equally infected by the judge’s erroneous approach to credibility.

11. As for sufficiency of protection, the judge records at [23] that the respondent had withdrawn her initial submission that the appellant could, if necessary, access the Witness Protection Programme. She also directed herself at [58] to the extant country guidance which found that those who were not reasonably likely to be admitted into Witness Protection would not normally receive effective protection in their home area if targeted by a criminal gang. Consequently, it cannot be said that the judge has made any findings on sufficiency of protection which would render the conceded error immaterial.

12. That leaves the judge’s findings on internal relocation. The respondent relies on the judge’s findings at [60]. However, these are similarly predicated on a rejection of Dr Noronha’s opinion (with scant and inadequate explanation beyond ‘not follow[ing] the line of reasoning’), that the appellant would be ‘hypervisible’, and the existence of family members in Jamaica who have not been targeted by the One Order Gang.

13. For the reasons given above, I am not satisfied that the appeal would necessarily have been dismissed had the judge properly understood the appellant’s case and taken a permissible approach to credibility.

14. In summary, I am satisfied that the decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error of law, and that the error was material to the outcome of the appeal. The parties agreed that, if that were my conclusion, none of the Tribunal’s findings and conclusions could be preserved and that it was necessary to remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard afresh. I concur.

Notice of Decision

1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error of law and is set aside.
2. The appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard afresh by a different judge with no findings preserved.

Sean O’Brien

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

10 June 2025