Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000439

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/53549/2023
LP/06359/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 20 October 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KAMARA
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MERRIGAN

Between

SUZHI ZHAO
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr P Richardson, counsel instructed by Corbin & Hassan Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr E Tufan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 15 July 2025

DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction
1. Following an error of law hearing which took place on 1 April 2025, the decision of the First-tier Tribunal issued on 13 December 2024 was set aside in respect of the finding that the appellant met the requirements of PL.5.1a) of Appendix Private Life. The appeal was retained in the Upper Tribunal for remaking. This decision should therefore be read in conjunction with the error of law decision issued on 17 April 2025.

Anonymity
2. There is no basis for making an anonymity direction and the appellant is not seeking any such direction.

Factual Background
3. The appellant is a national of China who entered the United Kingdom in the year 2000 and has continuously resided here subsequently. She came to the attention of the United Kingdom authorities during 2014, was placed on reporting restrictions with which she failed to comply. On the 12th May 2016 she was convicted of possession of a false identity document without reasonable excuse, contrary to section 6 of the Identity Documents Act 2010 and sentenced to five months’ imprisonment. As she had already served her time while on remand, the appellant was detained under immigration powers.
4. On 25 June 2016, the appellant claimed asylum on the basis of a fear of further ill-treatment at the hands of a loan shark from whom she borrowed money to develop her business in China. The appellant also made a trafficking claim which did not succeed, conclusively. The protection claim was refused on 2 July 2019 and certified as clearly unfounded. Following a judicial review challenge, the respondent agreed to reconsider the claim. That reconsideration led to the decision under challenge in these proceedings, that dated 9 June 2023 refusing the appellant’s protection claim as well as her human rights claim based on 20 years of continuous residence in the United Kingdom. In that decision, the respondent placed reliance on the appellant’s presence in the United Kingdom not being conducive to the public good owing her criminal conviction.
5. The First-tier Tribunal allowed the appellant’s human rights appeal in respect of Article 8 ECHR. The Secretary of State’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal against the conclusion that the appellant met the requirements of Appendix PL succeeded. That decision was set aside by the Upper Tribunal, with the findings and commentary contained in paragraphs 1-51 of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal being preserved.
6. The First-tier Tribunal also dismissed the appellant’s protection appeal as well as her Article 3 claim on medical grounds. The appellant did not challenge those conclusions.

The remaking hearing
7. A consolidated bundle was submitted by the appellant containing, inter alia, the core documents in the appeal, including the appellant’s and respondent’s bundles before the First-tier Tribunal.
8. The hearing was attended by representatives for both parties as above. Both representatives made submissions and the conclusions below reflect those arguments and submissions where necessary.
9. At the end of the hearing, we reserved our decision which we give below with reasons.

Discussion
10. In reaching this decision we have taken into consideration all the evidence and arguments made, even where not explicitly mentioned. The standard of proof is the civil standard.
11. As far as the facts are concerned, the starting point is the preserved findings of the First-tier Tribunal.
12. To summarise, from [38-51], the judge accepted that the appellant sustained the injuries identified in a Rule 35 report and that they were inflicted by Mr Z, the person from whom she had borrowed money. It is also recorded at [38] that the respondent accepted that the appellant had borrowed money from Mr Z and had been forced to live with him as his girlfriend in lieu of the debt. At [42] the judge records that the appellant undertook Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and was discharged from treatment in 2019.
13. Regarding the appellant’s length of residence, at [50], the judge accepts that there is evidence of the appellant arriving in the United Kingdom in October 2000 and at [51] he concludes that she has resided here continuously for more than 20 years.
14. There was no dispute between the representatives as to the facts of the case; the existence of the private life developed by the appellant in the United Kingdom; that she could not meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules or that the decision to remove her would amount to an interference with that private life. The disagreement between the parties went solely to the issue of proportionality.
15. The matters which support the Secretary of State’s case include that the appellant was unable to meet the long residence requirements in Appendix Private Life owing to her conviction for the aforementioned document offence. That conviction is, in itself, a very serious matter to which we have attached considerable weight. We accept that the appellant’s use of a forged passport is a matter which undermines the good order of society, applying Benabbas [2005] EWCA Crim 2113.
16. Considering the matters set out in section 117B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, as amended, we have attached weight to the fact that the appellant is not fluent in English, that any financial independence has to be considered alongside the fact that she has never had permission to work in the United Kingdom and that little weight should be placed on her private life which has been established when she had no permission to be in the United Kingdom. Further matters which we have considered on the respondent’s side of the scale are the fact that the appellant spent over thirty-five years living in China, which amounts to the majority of her life, and that she can be considered to be an insider, applying Kamara.
17. We now consider the factors on the appellant’s side of the scale. The finding of the First-tier Tribunal, in relation to the appellant’s residence in the United Kingdom, is preserved. In short, the judge found that the appellant had been residing continuously in the United Kingdom since May 2000 [49-51]. Therefore, the appellant who is aged 61 has been living in the United Kingdom for twenty-five years which is not an insignificant amount of her life. Notwithstanding the length of this residence, we are required to attach little weight to it because the appellant’s residence has been unlawful throughout.
18. We have considered whether the passage of another 5 years since the appellant met the residence requirement of Appendix Private Life could tip the balance back in her favour given her offending and were not satisfied that it could, without more.
19. We have attached significant weight to the circumstances which led the appellant to come to the United Kingdom. In considering this, we are cognisant of the fact that the appellant’s protection appeal was dismissed and that she did not challenge that decision. It is also the case that a negative Conclusive Grounds decision was made in respect of the appellant’s claim to be a victim of trafficking.
20. Briefly the appellant’s case is that in 1999 she borrowed money from a named person in China in order to start a business. Upon being unable to repay the loan, the appellant agreed to become the girlfriend of the lender and was subjected to serious violence.
21. A Rule 35 medical report which dates from 2016 when the appellant was detained under immigration powers, recorded that as a result of physical and sexual abuse experienced by the appellant from the lender, there were ‘several scars of abuse over her body. Poor sleep and flashbacks.’ The report goes into considerable further detail regarding the type and placement of cigarette burns to the appellant’s body which we will not reproduce here because of the sensitive nature of that evidence.
22. The Secretary of State accepted only the appellant’s account of having taken out this loan at paragraph 29 of the decision. The remainder of the appellant’s account was rejected.
23. The First-tier Tribunal judge considered the appellant’s claims and accepted that the appellant ‘sustained the injuries identified in the Rule 35 report because they were inflicted by (the lender).’[38] Nonetheless, the judge considered the time which had lapsed since these events, found that the appellant could seek the protection of the Chinese authorities or relocate to avoid the lender and concluded that there was no current risk of persecution or ill-treatment.
24. The appellant was previously suffering from poor mental health and was receiving psychotherapy, including CBT according to the reliable medical evidence adduced. We have taken into consideration Mr Tufan’s submission that these documents are no longer relevant because the appellant was discharged from mental health services in 2019. Nonetheless, we find that this evidence tends to show that the appellant’s mental wellbeing was adversely affected by the events which preceded her departure from China and it is a factor which we consider cumulatively along with the remainder of the evidence and arguments.
25. We were referred to background material in relation to the circumstances which the appellant is likely to face upon return to China. Mr Richardson submitted that the First-tier Tribunal judge found that the appellant was sexually exploited, however we can find no reference to any such finding in the preserved paragraphs of the decision. We therefore find the references to vulnerability to forced labour in the CPIN China: Modern slavery Version 1.0 of January 2021 has no application to the appellant’s case.
26. We do accept that the appellant is vulnerable on account of her age, as a victim of serious physical abuse and lacking family support, except for a brother who is himself vulnerable by reason of disability. Furthermore, the respondent did not seek to challenge the evidence provided in the appellant’s bundle as to the age discrimination in China in relation to employment. One such document referred to Chinese labour law which indicates that women cadres of over 55 and female blue-collar worker over 50 are not ‘qualified to sign labor contracts.’ Additional evidence explains the Chinese Social Security System as well as the joint obligations of both employee and employer to make contributions. As the appellant has been in the United Kingdom for 25 years, it follows that she has no recent work experience in China and has made no recent social security contributions. We accept that she would struggle to obtain work given her age and absence from China as well as to support herself or obtain state support.
27. What does tip the balance in the appellant’s favour when considered alongside all the circumstances, is the delay in the respondent’s consideration of her protection claim. We consider that delay to be a relevant factor in this proportionality assessment and have accorded it a moderate degree of weight. The appellant claimed asylum in June 2016 after being convicted of the document offence. That claim was not decided until July 2019, a period of three years later. The appellant launched a judicial review claim which was settled in April 2020 with the respondent agreeing to reconsider the asylum claim. It was not until June 2023 that the respondent concluded that reconsideration, a delay of a further three years.
28. Mr Tufan did not seek to apportion any blame for the delays in considering the asylum claim between 2016 and 2023 on the appellant during his submissions. We find that this delay is a relevant factor, applying EB (Kosovo) [2006] EWCA Civ 1713. While we were referred to no evidence that the appellant developed greater ties during this delay, we find that the delay may well have contributed to the impression that the appellant was less likely to be removed. We further find that the weight to be accorded to the public interest is reduced in this case.
29. In conclusion, we find that the balance falls, just, in favour of the appellant. Her removal from the United Kingdom as a victim of serious violence, as an older person and having been away from China for twenty-five years, is likely to result in unjustifiably harsh consequences and therefore amounts to a disproportionate interference with her Article 8 ECHR rights.

Notice of Decision
The appeal is allowed.

T Kamara

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

25 July 2025

NOTIFICATION OF APPEAL RIGHTS

1. A person seeking permission to appeal against this decision must make a written application to the Upper Tribunal. Any such application must be received by the Upper Tribunal within the appropriate period after this decision was sent to the person making the application. The appropriate period varies, as follows, according to the location of the individual and the way in which the Upper Tribunal’s decision was sent:

2. Where the person who appealed to the First-tier Tribunal is in the United Kingdom at the time that the application for permission to appeal is made, and is not in detention under the Immigration Acts, the appropriate period is 12 working days (10 working days, if the notice of decision is sent electronically).

3. Where the person making the application is in detention under the Immigration Acts, the appropriate period is 7 working days (5 working days, if the notice of decision is sent electronically).

4. Where the person who appealed to the First-tier Tribunal is outside the United Kingdom at the time that the application for permission to appeal is made, the appropriate period is 38 days (10 working days, if the notice of decision is sent electronically).

5. A “working day” means any day except a Saturday or a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday.

6. The date when the decision is “sent’ is that appearing on the covering letter or covering email