Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000915

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/66073/2023
LP/10223/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 30 June 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LOUGHRAN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE NAIK

Between

OD
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

The Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms A Imamovic, Counsel instructed by Goshen Solicitors Limited
For the Respondent: Mr P Lawson, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 17 June 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant, her partner and their two children are granted anonymity.

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

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant, a national of Albania, appeals with permission of Upper Tribunal Judge Hoffman sitting as a First-tier Tribunal Judge against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge French (‘the judge’) dated 13 January 2025.
2. The appellant appealed against the respondent’s decision dated 4 December 2023 refusing her protection and human rights claim.
3. We maintain the anonymity order that was granted by the First-tier Tribunal. No party requested that the order be set aside.
Background
4. The appellant claims that her problems in Albania began when she became engaged to a man we shall refer to as ‘ET’ in 2006. She states that he was verbally, physically and psychologically abusive towards her and that in 2007 he took her to a hotel every day for two weeks where she was sexually exploited by a series of men. Subsequently ET threatened and cut the appellant with a knife. The appellant separated from ET because she became aware that he wanted to traffick her to Italy. After they separated ET came to her university and threatened her at gunpoint. He told her that he had a video of her at the hotel and that he would make it public.
5. The appellant explains that she had gone to the police to make a complaint but did not think they had taken any action and subsequently she withdrew her complaint. ET was arrested and sent to prison. The appellant understands that he was convicted of car offences but released after only four years because of his influence with the police. In 2011 the appellant met her current partner DK and they subsequently had two children, one while they were still in Albania and one after they arrived in the UK.
6. After the appellant became involved with DK there were several occasions in Albania when either she or DK was confronted and threatened. They include an occasion when two masked men threatened DK, which resulted in him dislocating his shoulder and an occasion when the appellant was confronted by a man whilst pregnant. The man threatened her, told her she had to return to her ex-partner ET and pushed her, causing her to fall off some stairs.
7. The family came to the UK in October 2021 and the appellant claimed asylum on 4 November 2021. On 8 December 2023 the respondent made a conclusive grounds decision that the appellant was a victim of trafficking.
8. On 4 December 2023 the respondent refused the appellant’s protection and human rights claim. The respondent accepted the appellant’s identity, nationality and that she was a victim of trafficking. The respondent did not accept she was at real risk of serious harm on return because the people she feared were non-state actors. Having considered the appellant’s personal circumstances against the case of TD and AD (Trafficked women) CG [2016] UKUT 92 (IAC), the respondent considered that the appellant was not at increased risk of re-trafficking. The respondent considered that there would be sufficiency of protection from persecution in Albania and that the appellant could internally relocate. In respect of Article 8 the respondent considered that the appellant did not meet the Immigration Rules and had not raised any exceptional or compassionate circumstances in her case.

The Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
9. The appellant appealed against the refusal of her protection and human rights claim. The appeal came before the judge on 8 January 2025. Both the appellant and her partner DK gave evidence and were cross-examined.
10. In a decision dated 13 January 2025 the judge dismissed the appellant’s appeal.
The Appeal to the Upper Tribunal
11. The appellant applied for permission to appeal against the judge’s decision relying on grounds which can be summarised as follows:
Ground 1: The judge erred in finding that it was the appellant’s case that the appellant and her family had not come to any harm after her separation from ET when it was her account that DK had dislocated his shoulder and she was pushed causing her to fall off some stairs when pregnant.
Ground 2: The judge erred by finding that the appellant’s credibility was damaged by her failure to claim asylum in other safe countries and using a false passport in the circumstances where it had not been raised by the respondent and at the hearing the Home Office Presenting Officer confirmed that the respondent did not rely on these points.
Ground 3: The judge failed to consider that the appellant and her family had in fact been threatened directly and in addition failed to consider the appellant’s vulnerability in the judge’s assessment of her actions.
Ground 4: The judge’s assessment of ET’s connection to the police is flawed by the judge considering that it had to be demonstrated that ET had connections to the whole of the police force and by failing to consider the appellant’s evidence that ET had told her that he had connections to the police.
Ground 5: The judge failed to assess the risk of re-trafficking and state protection, in particular that the judge failed to apply TD and AD or consider the country background evidence relied upon by the appellant.
Ground 6: The judge failed to assess the appellant’s circumstances in respect of whether it would be safe or reasonable for her to internally relocate.
Ground 7: The judge makes unclear findings regarding the appellant’s mental health by making a material mistake of fact that the appellant did not have mental health problems when she had in fact attempted suicide while she was still in Albania and by failing to give adequate reasons for rejecting the medical evidence before them.
Ground 8: The judge’s consideration of Article 8 and Section 55 are also flawed.
12. Permission to appeal was granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Hoffman sitting as a First-tier Tribunal Judge.
13. There was no response provided by the respondent under Rule 24 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008.
14. The appellant made an application under Rule 15(2A) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 to rely on additional evidence.
The Hearing
15. At the beginning of the hearing Mr Lawson indicated that the respondent accepted that the judge had materially erred in law. Mr Lawson confirmed that he accepted that the judge materially erred in the manner identified in each of the appellant’s grounds and that those errors were material. Mr Lawson said that in light of those errors, it could not be said that the appellant had a fair first hearing and it was therefore appropriate to remit the matter to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard afresh before a different judge.
16. Ms Imamovic confirmed that she had nothing more to add.
17. We indicated to the parties that we agreed with Mr Lawson’s concessions and that in those circumstances it was not necessary for us to determine the application under Rule 15(2)(a) to admit further evidence.
Discussion
18. We have focussed our discussion on what we consider to be the most significant errors of law. We are satisfied that they justify setting the decision aside on the basis that it is unsafe. However, we consider that Mr Lawson’s concession that all the grounds are made out is rightly made.
19. We are satisfied that the judge materially erred by making material mistakes of fact in respect of the appellant’s account. Contrary to the judge’s finding it was clearly the appellant’s account that there have been other incidents of physical harm to both her and DK since her separation from ET.
20. We are also satisfied that the judge erred by finding that the appellant’s credibility was damaged because of her failure to claim asylum in other safe countries and the fact that she used a false passport. We note that section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 requires deciding authorities to take account of such behaviour as damaging a claimant’s credibility. However, the Court of Appeal in JT (Cameroon) v SSHD [2008] EWCA Civ 878, made it clear that section 8 was “no more than a reminder to fact-finding tribunals that conduct coming within the categories stated in section 8 shall be taken into account in assessing credibility.” In this case, the respondent had not relied on section 8 as damaging the appellant’s credibility in the decision or the review and the Home Office Presenting Officer confirmed that they did not take issue with the appellant’s behaviour at the hearing. The judge’s reliance on the appellant’s behaviour as damaging her credibility without raising it as an issue deprived the appellant of a fair opportunity to provide an explanation.
21. We are also satisfied that the judge failed to assess the risk of re-trafficking, state protection and internal relocation. We note that there is no reference to the binding country guidance case of TD and AD anywhere in the decision, which gives guidance on all those issues. The judge was obliged, but failed to apply the current country guidance case to the facts appellant’s case.
22. We are satisfied the judge made a material mistake of fact that the appellant did not have mental health problems in Albania when it was her account that she had attempted suicide and we are also satisfied that the judge failed to give adequate reasons for rejecting the medical evidence that was before him.
23. In those circumstances, we agree with Mr Lawson that the appellant has not had a fair first hearing and that the matter should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard afresh with no findings of fact preserved.

Notice of Decision
(a) There are material errors of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. Accordingly the decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside.
(b) The decision will be remitted to the First tier Tribunal to be heard by a different judge.
(c) No findings of fact are preserved.

G. Loughran

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

25 June 2025