Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: UI-2025-000099
[LH/06157/2024]
[HU/58353/2023]

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Field House
On 27 June 2025
Decision and Reasons Promulgated
On 10 October 2025

Before

Upper Tribunal Judge BULPITT
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge MANUELL

Between

Mr MEWA SINGH
(NO ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr N Ahmed, Counsel
(instructed by Ishwar Solicitors)
For the Respondent: Ms N Kerr, Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

1. Permission to appeal was granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Kamara on 18 February 2025 against the decision to dismiss the Appellant’s Article 8 ECHR human rights appeal made by First-tier Tribunal Judge Reed in a decision and reasons dated 15 November 2024. The Appellant claimed that he had been continuously resident in the United Kingdom for in excess of 20 years.

2. The Appellant, a national of India born on 18 December 1995, arrived in the United Kingdom and entered illegally on 1 September 2002. He applied for Indefinite Leave to Remain on continuous long residence grounds on 31 May 2023. His application was refused on 4 July 2023, on the basis that continuity of residence had not been proved.

3. Judge Reed concluded his decision as follows: “In all the circumstances, and considering the evidence as a whole, I am not satisfied that the Appellant has been continuously resident for the relevant 20-year period. I find that he was in the UK in 2003 and during various years thereafter. However, I am not satisfied that the Appellant was continuously resident in the UK between late 2010 and June 2019. I find that it is likely that he has been continuously resident thereafter.” Judge Reed went on to dismiss the Appellant’s Article 8 ECHR appeal.

4. The Appellant appealed to the Upper Tribunal, contending that there were material errors of law. It was asserted in summary that the Judge had adopted a restrictive and inconsistent approach to the evidence and had failed to give credit to the oral and written testimony.

5. Permission to appeal was refused by the First-tier Tribunal but was granted by the Upper Tribunal. Upper Tribunal Judge Kamara’s grant of permission to appeal was in the following terms: “The appeal turned on whether the Appellant’s claim to have resided in the United Kingdom continuously since September 2002 was accepted or rejected. It is arguable that in finding that there was a gap in the GP records from late 2010 to July 2019 the Judge made a mistake of fact and furthermore erred in considering this evidence in isolation and arguably failed to take account of other evidence, including medical, which related to this period. All the grounds are arguable.”

6. There was no rule 24 notice from the Respondent but Ms Kerr indicated that the appeal was opposed.

7. Mr Ahmed for the Appellant applied for permission under rule 15 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 to produce additional evidence concerning the Appellant’s medical records. He accepted that none of the documents which were the subject of the application had been placed before the First-tier Tribunal Judge. The Tribunal refused the application as the additional documents had no bearing on whether the Judge had made a material error of law in his decision.

8. Mr Ahmed relied on the grounds of appeal. The appeal had turned on the Judge’s findings as to the period 2010 to 2019 and his treatment of the medical evidence, the oral testimony, the photographs and the mobile phone bills. The medical evidence should have been considered in the light of the other evidence. The Judge had accepted periods of United Kingdom residence by the Appellant, where there had also been gaps in the medical evidence. The Judge had taken an impermissible, inconsistent approach.

9. In particular, the Judge had overlooked the GP medical card dated 19 March 2012 and the low fat diet sheet which showed dates of 2014 and 2017. Here the Tribunal interrupted to point out that the submission was unsustainable because (a) the dates of 2014 and 2017 referred to the creation and review of the document, which in any event was dated 2022 and (b) the Appellant was not named on or linked to the document.

10. Mr Ahmed submitted that the absence of medical evidence between 2010 and 2019 did not mean that the Appellant was absent from the United Kingdom during that period. The witnesses had stated that the Appellant was present. The Judge should not have preferred the medical records to the oral evidence. The Judge was wrong to have found that the witnesses were not independent, especially when he had declared one witness to be of “good character”. Then there were the photographs, which should have attracted weight. The mobile phone records, while not in the Appellant’s name, were linked in other documents to him. (The Tribunal pointed out that the document to which Mr Ahmed referred to was dated 2021.) Mr Ahmed otherwise relied on the grounds. He asked that the error of law appeal should be allowed, the decision set aside and the appeal reheard in the First-tier Tribunal.

11. Ms Kerr for the Respondent submitted that the Appellant’s contentions amounted to nothing more than re-arguing the appeal. The Judge had properly considered all of the evidence and the findings he reached were open to him. Disagreement with a decision could not amount to a material error of law. The appeal should be dismissed.

12. The Tribunal reserved its decision, which now follows. The Tribunal finds that there was no material error of law in Judge Reed’s decision. The unexplained gap in the medical records produced by the Appellant and discussed by the Judge at [36] was an obvious and striking one between 2010 and 2019, especially as the Appellant had received extensive NHS care (to which he was not entitled) both before and after that date. The Judge made no error concerning that evidence. He noted that the NHS card of 2012 stood in isolation. The submission about the diet sheet and its internal dates was misconceived, as explained above. The fact that an advice sheet about a low fat diet, which had been created by a doctor in 2014 and reviewed by a different doctor in 2017, was sent to the Appellant in 2022, could have had no bearing on the question of whether the Appellant was residing in the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2019.

13. The Judge’s approach to the evidence between 2010 and 2019 was no different from his approach to any other relevant period of the Appellant’s claim, i.e., he conducted an “in the round” evaluation, examining all of the evidence, as he stated at [33] of his decision. It is trite law that weight is a matter for the trial judge. The Judge did not impermissibly restrict himself to “official” documents as evidence of long stay: see Khan, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWCA Civ 416. The Judge gave sound reasons why he gave little weight to the evidence of the Appellant’s witnesses, who were either relatives and/or connected to him by their shared religious identity. All of the witnesses had been complicit to one degree or another in the Appellant’s illegal presence in the United Kingdom, as the Judge was entitled to find.

14. Similarly, the judge was entitled to find that “Even taken at its highest, the photographic evidence only shows the Appellant to be in the UK at specific times. There are significant gaps between the various sets of photographs.” (See [41] of the decision.)

15. As noted above, the submission that the Judge had overlooked the dates of 2014 and 2017 in a document itself dated 2022 was misconceived. It is also obvious that a person who found the means to enter the United Kingdom illegally without the knowledge of the immigration authorities and who was willing to do so, is equally likely to have the means to depart illegally and return again, as the Judge found.

16. The submission concerning the mobile phone document was similarly misconceived. The mobile phone in question was never in the Appellant’s name and the links to him were tenuous or equivocal, so the Judge was entitled to give that evidence limited weight. The documents which link the Appellant to the mobile phone in question all post-dated the period between 2010 and 2019 when the Judge found that the Appellant was not continuously resident in the United Kingdom

17. The Tribunal concludes that none of the grounds of appeal raised is made out. The Judge’s decision was sufficiently reasoned and demonstrated that all of the evidence put forward by the Appellant or on his behalf had been properly considered. The onwards appeal must be dismissed.

DECISION

The appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed.

There was no material error of law in the First-tier Tribunal’s decision and reasons, which stands unchanged.

Signed Dated 2 July 2025

R J Manuell
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Manuell