Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000885

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/61202/2023
LP/09447/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 27 November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANE

Between

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Appellant
and

RXS
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Terrell, Senior Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Ms Young

Heard at Field House on 25 April 2025

DECISION AND REASONS

1. I shall refer to the appellant as ‘the respondent’ and to the respondent as ‘the appellant’ as they respectively appeared before the First-tier Tribunal.
2. The First-tier Tribunal gave the background to the appellant’s appeal as follows:
(Mr S) is a national of Iran. The date on which he arrived in the United Kingdom has not been vouched by any documentary evidence. His case is that he arrived on 19 November 2021, having crossed the Channel in an inflatable rubber boat, claimed asylum on the following day, 20 November 2021 and had been born on 10 March 1998. The Secretary of State has accepted that as his date of birth. He is therefore now 26 years old. In November 2021, he was c. 23 years old. He had no passport or other documents vouching his identity. He is a speaker of Kurdish Sorani. The Secretary of State accepts that he is of Kurdish origin. The primary case asserted (and the only case asserted at the date of the Secretary of State's decision (6 November 2023) was that he was a Christian convert. Since then, additional claims, on the basis of his attendance at demonstrations outside the Iranian embassy in London and of material which he had posted on "Facebook" have been asserted. The Secretary of State is content that those matters should be considered in this appeal and should not be disregarded as being "new matters" under s. 85(5) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (the 2002 Act).
3. The First-tier Tribunal allowed the appeal on asylum and human rights grounds. The Secretary of State now appeals to the Upper Tribunal. The grounds of appeal assert that ‘, the evidence simply does not show the appellant to be a genuine Christian convert in line with the relevant jurisprudence and judge has failed to adequately explain how these factors are not detrimental to his claim.’ The grounds assert:
At [23], judge was satisfied that, despite ‘significant evidential deficiencies,’ (relating to the lack of any evaluative evidence from the elders of the Christadelphian church to support the claim the appellant’s beliefs in the Christian faith are genuine), the appellant ‘has rejected Islam and is a genuine Christian convert and is genuinely studying with a view to being baptised as a member of the Christadelphian Church and with a view to practising his religion on a permanent basis’ [23]. Judge formed this view on the evidence of one church elder’s written support of the appellant having found that Mrs Knight would not have written in support of the appellant had she not ‘been satisfied that he was a genuine Christian convert and genuinely studying to enable him to be baptised.,’ which is highly speculative. Furthermore, judge also accepted the appellant’s evidence that he did not agree with the doctrines of the Anglican church, having only attended two church services since his arrival in the UK in 2021, until he joined the Christadelphian church in April 2024
4. Mr Terrell, for the Secretary of State, noted that the letter of the witness Ms Knight was not available. However, from the summary given by the First-tier Tribunal, it was, he submitted, (i) clear that the witness had not reached a final view on the genuineness of the appellant’s conversion and (ii) the witness had not attended for cross examination. The First-tier Tribunal should not, in those circumstances, have given significant weight to Ms Knight’s evidence. This was, he submitted, the crux of the Secretary of State’s appeal.
5. At [22], the First-tier Tribunal noted ‘significant deficiencies’ in the evidence as to the appellant’s claimed conversion:
(1) has not expressed an opinion as to Mr S' good faith and the authenticity of his (asserted) adherence to Christianity (albeit that I have in mind that, if she had had significant doubts, it is to be expected that she would have declined to write the letter which she did), and
(2) has not given any indication of the checks and/or tests (if any) which she and/or the Christadelphian Church carry out on those who join the Christadelphian Church and/or attend its Bible study and baptism (or other) classes to determine whether the individuals concerned are genuinely studying Christianity, and/or are genuine Christians (or whether they are motivated by the desire to procure leave to remain as refugees),
(c) there is no letter or witness statement from Mr Stephen Cox (who ran or moderated the (remote) Bible study class which Mr S attended) or any other elder of the Christadelphian Church dealing with the above matters, and
(d) neither Mrs Knight nor Mr Stephen Cox (or any other representative of the Christadelphian church attended the hearing and gave oral evidence relating to the above matters.
Notwithstanding these deficiencies, the First-tier Tribunal concluded ‘but by a very short head’ ‘that:
Mr S has rejected Islam and is a genuine Christian convert and is a genuinely studying with a view to being baptised as a member of the Christadelphian Church and with a view to practising his religion on a permanent basis. I reach that conclusion for the following reasons, albeit that I am well aware that the grant of leave to remain would bring him substantial financial and other advantages and that he has a substantial incentive to pretend dishonestly to a faith which he does not have - and that many of those who claim asylum on the basis of being Christian converts do so fraudulently’.
The First-tier Tribunal’s very detailed reasons are given at [23]. As part of that extremely thorough analysis, the First-tier Tribunal noted regarding Ms Knight’s evidence:
Although Mrs Knight did not provide the details to which I have referred in paragraph 22(b), I consider it inherently lacking in likelihood that she would have written in support of Mr S' appeal, if she had not been satisfied that he was a genuine Christian convert and genuinely studying to enable him to be baptised. If she had had significant doubts, but suppressed them and wrote in the terms which she did, the letter, though not positively false, would, necessarily, have given a false impression. She cannot but have known that if she had done that, she would inevitably have prejudiced her and the Christadelphians Church's ability to assist genuine Christian and Christadelphian converts in future.
6. In my opinion, the decision of the First-tier Tribunal is legally sound. First, It is difficult to imagine a more exhaustive consideration of the evidence in this appeal than that provided by the judge. There can be no question that he has considered all the relevant evidence. As regards the witness Ms Knight, the judge has carried out a meticulous analysis of her evidence, including its ‘deficiencies’, and has ultimately chosen to accept what she says regarding the appellant’s adherence to the Christadelphian church. He was not obliged, as Mr Terrell submits, to give the evidence limited weight because the witness’s view was provisional or ‘not settled’. Indeed, he found unequivocally that ‘she would [not] have written in support of Mr S' appeal, if she had not been satisfied that he was a genuine Christian convert and genuinely studying to enable him to be baptised.’ Mr Terrell’s submission is no more than a disagreement with the judge’s legitimate finding of fact.
7. Secondly, the fact that the judge reached his findings only ‘by a very short head’ is of no relevance whatever. Such a comment by the judge, following such a careful examination of the evidence, should be no encouragement to the losing party to launch a challenge on the rationality of the findings. Another judge may have reached different findings on the same facts but that is not the point. What matters is that this judge has reached rational findings of fact on the relevant evidence.
8. For the reasons I have given, I dismiss the Secretary of State’s appeal.

Notice of Decision
The Secretary of State’s appeal is dismissed.

C. N. Lane

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 12 May 2025