Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001086

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/63982/2023
LP/10861/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 24th of June 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE SEELHOFF

Between

SF
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

The Secretary of State of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Naseem, Counsel, Hanson Law
For the Respondent: Mr E Tufan, Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 2 May 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 with permission against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal, promulgated on 14 January 2025, dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s refusal of his protection and human rights claims. The grounds of appeal summarised in the grant of permission are that the First-tier Tribunal Judge (‘the judge’) failed as follows: failure to follow the Joint Presidential Guidance; failure to consider whether photographic and expert evidence had corroborated the Appellant’s account; and, misdirection in respect of what ID the applicant had before he left and a failure to make findings in respect of how the applicant could obtain an INID card. Permission was granted on all pleaded grounds.
2. We confirm, because it was clear to us on our reading of the grounds, that in fact there was a further standalone allegation forming part of the pleaded ground 1: that the judge’s description of the appellant’s case was lacking in detail and disclosed a failure to take into account a relevant piece of evidence: a further more detailed witness statement from the appellant dated 13 December 2024 (or alternatively, if that evidence had been taken into account, that the judge reached an unreasonable conclusion). We refer to below to this ground as ground 1(b) (and to the first ground summarised in the permission as ground 1(a)).
3. We had the benefit of a combined bundle filed in accordance with the standard directions comprising a 167-page PDF. We also had the benefit of a Rule 24 response from the Home Office uploaded on 5 March 2025.
4. Regrettably, for whatever reason, that response had not previously been brought to the attention of Mr Naseem of Counsel. However, Mr Tufan provided a copy today and Mr Naseem was able to read it and deal with it in short order. We are grateful to both of the representatives for the efficient way that they have dealt with the matter.
5. In essence and without wishing to do disservice to either of the representatives, they relied heavily on what was their respective pleaded cases. We asked a few questions in clarification.
6. The focus of ground 1(a), failure to take into account the vulnerable witness and child guidance, was that the judge inappropriately held against the appellant a supposed lack of detail. Paragraph 10.3 of the Joint Presidential Guidance states that children often do not provide as much detail as adults. The focus of the submissions on ground 3 was that, whether or not the situation now is that the respondent can and does return people to Sulaymaniyah, the appellant’s home area, and that he could therefore redocument in a local civil status affairs office, the judge had not even addressed that point. The judge had simply made a bold assertion that the appellant could redocument.
7. In terms of ground 1(b), the only point on which we needed further submissions from Mr Tufan was whether he accepted that the judge had not referred to the witness statement of the appellant from December 2024. He accepted that that was the case but submitted that the judge had given the sparseness of detail given in his first witness statement of February 2023 merely as an example of a general lack of detail in the applicant’s account.
Conclusions
8. It is illustrative to see what the judge says in respect of the appellant’s account and the detail thereof, to be found in paragraph 16:
“16. However, I find that even if I consider the appellant’s youth and the passage of time and make allowances for those factors, his account is lacking in detail to the extent that its reliability is significantly impaired. For example, in his first witness statement made in February 2023, the events recounted in relation to the relationship – the heart of his claim – are contained within no more than 5 paragraphs, just over half a typed page. The rest of his 4 page statement deals with his knowledge of Iraq/Kurdish life and his journey from Iraq. In the same way his Asylum Interview Record (‘AIR’) contains limited information about his relationship with S, his stepsister or his stepfather, J.”
9. There follows other examples of a lack of information.
10. We find that the judge’s opening sentence (that she has taken into account, youth, passage of time, and has made allowances for those factors) robs of all force the argument that the judge did not apply the vulnerable witness and child guidance. The guidance does not say that a lack of detail can never be taken into account. It goes no further than suggesting that these are things that should not automatically be held against the individual concerned. The judge makes it clear that she has taken those factors into account but that the account is so lacking in detail that nevertheless its reliability is impaired. Provided that it was open to the judge to consider that the appellant’s account was so lacking in detail, that would be a matter she was entitled to hold against the appellant.
11. What we find to have considerably more force, indeed such force that we are persuaded that it is an error of law, is the judge’s finding that the account was lacking in detail. She makes express reference to the first witness statement. We recognise that it is said to be an example of a lack of detail. However, she describes the extent to which the events in question were described there. What she does not mention is the subsequent witness statement, or the description therein of the events in question. We recognise that the judge should be taken to acknowledge that there is another witness statement, because she makes reference to the statement she criticises as the appellant’s ‘first witness statement’. However, she does not then deal with the subsequent witness statement which does, for the purposes of the judge’s consideration, give considerably more detail. The events are certainly dealt with in considerably more paragraphs over a considerably longer page length, thirteen paragraphs over two pages of A4.
12. As an appellate tribunal we should not easily conclude that the judge has overlooked evidence, and would have to be persuaded from the entirety of the decision that the judge truly had something material out of account. However, it is clear that the judge has placed such significant reliance on the sparsity of the information in the first witness statement in her conclusion as to the lack of detailed account overall, that we are drawn to the conclusion that the judge did leave the later witness statement out of account.
13. That statement was unarguably relevant. It was open for her to reject it. It was open for her indeed to suggest that this was detail subsequently provided because the appellant knew he had been criticised about the lack of detail before. All of these things would have been open to the judge; however, none were considered by the judge. The judge instead alighted on a lack of detail. Even if we had accepted that the judge took this witness statement into account, we would have found that her conclusion on detail was either not one reasonably open to the judge or one not adequately reasoned Either way, that is an error of law.
14. We were not necessarily particularly persuaded by the merits of the remaining grounds; however, that matters not. The reason it does not matter is because the judge makes clear in the paragraph we cited the importance in her decision of the lack of detail. Furthermore, at paragraph 22 the judge says:
“22. I find that he has not established as a serious possibility that he was in a relationship with his stepsister nor that he fears serious harm or violence from a stepfather because I find his account to be lacking in detail and internally inconsistent in parts.”
15. It is clear again from paragraph 22, that the lack of detail in the appellant’s account was a material factor in her rejection of the appellant’s account.
16. We are forced to the conclusion that there are no findings which can be preserved. Moreover, having considered the relevant Practice Direction, we are satisfied that this is a matter which has to be considered afresh by the First-tier Tribunal in order to preserve the integrity of the two-tier system l.
Error of Law
17. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error of law and is set aside with no findings of fact preserved.
18. The appeal is remitted to be heard afresh in the First-tier Tribunal by a different judge.

Sean O’Brien

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

18 June 2025