Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001945
UI-2025-001946

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/64913/2023
LH/00494/2025
HU/64914/2023
LH/00495/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 26 November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE JOLLIFFE

Between

NR
AI
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Fazli of Counsel, instructed by Polaris Law
For the Respondent: Mr Nappey, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 2 September 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellants are granted anonymity.

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

DECISION AND REASONS
1. This is the remaking of the appellants’ appeals against decisions by the respondent dated 14 December 2023 to refuse the appellants’ protection and human rights claims, the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FtT) dismissing their appeals having been set aside by the Upper Tribunal in a decision dated 10 July 2025 (annexed).
2. The appellants are mother and son, with the latter’s claim wholly dependent on the former’s. Consequently, we shall refer below to the mother as ‘the appellant’.
3. The appellant claimed protection on two separate bases: that she would be targeted by the Chhatra League (the student wing of the Awami League), and by the Rapid Action Battalion (a Bangladeshi paramilitary organisation); and that she would be targeted by religious extremists in Bangladesh because she had had a child out of wedlock in the United Kingdom.
4. The FtT dismissed the appeal on all grounds in a decision and reasons dated 13 March 2025. Permission to appeal was sought on three grounds: the FtT’s rejection of the appellant’s claim to be an unmarried mother was ‘speculative and unconsciously biased’; the FtT wrongly interpreted s8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004; and the FtT was wrong in law to categorise the appellant’s immigration status as precarious.
5. The Respondent conceded that the FtT had made a material error of law in the part of its decision dealing with any risk facing the appellant because of the circumstances of her child's birth (see the error of law decision at [9]). The Upper Tribunal agreed that that concession was properly made and set aside the decision in respect of that part of the appellant’s protection appeal. The Upper Tribunal found that the other two grounds of appeal did not disclose any error of law. Consequently, it directed that the appeal be remade at a further hearing which would ‘focus exclusively on the issue of whether the appellant's son is illegitimate, and whether the appellant holds a well founded fear of persecution if removed to Bangladesh as a single woman with an illegitimate child’ [14]. Thus the matter comes before us.
6. We note in passing that the notice of decision records that the appeal will be remade at this hearing ‘to determine the issue identified in paragraph 13 above’. However, this is manifestly a typographical error, the reference clearly intended to be to paragraph 14 of the error of law decision.
Preliminary matters
7. Notice of the hearing to remake the decision was sent to the parties on 4 August 2025. The notice expressly informed the parties that the Upper Tribunal would not consider evidence not before the First-tier Tribunal unless the Upper Tribunal decided to admit the evidence, and parties were reminded of rule 15(2A) of the Upper Tribunal Procedure Rules. Nevertheless, a hearing bundle provided to the tribunal only on the morning included new documentary evidence relating to the child's father.
8. Notwithstanding the clear breach of directions, Mr Nappey did not object to the new documents’ admission and so we permitted the appellant to rely on the documents in the interests of justice. We reminded the parties, however, of the need for procedural rigour and compliance with directions, and directed that the managing partner of the appellant’s solicitors write to the Tribunal by 4:00 PM on 5 September 2025 explaining the non-compliant conduct. That was done.

The Hearing
9. The appellant gave evidence on the basis of the witness statement she had provided for proceedings before the FtT, and adduced the new documents referred to above. She was cross-examined by Mr Nappey. Each of the representatives gave oral submissions on the issues we had to decide. Whilst we set out below only that necessary to understand our conclusions, we took the entirety of the evidence and submissions into account.
10. The appellant’s account of matters relevant to the issues we have to decide is, in a nutshell, as follows. She came to the United Kingdom on 5 November 2021 on a student visa. She met the father of her child (MI) in or around February 2022 at university and realised she was pregnant in or around April 2022. When she realised she was pregnant, she tried to persuade MI to marry her; however, MI refused, telling her that he preferred men. The appellant understands that MI is a recognised refugee in the United Kingdom on the basis of his sexuality. The appellant told her mother of her pregnancy at or around the same time. This became known to the local religious leaders, who have threatened to harm the appellant and her son if she returns to Bangladesh. The appellant does not live with MI and has no relationship with him; however, he sees his son around twice a week and has provided the appellant with certain documentation for her to register the child at a school.
11. It is the respondent’s case that the couple remain in a relationship, indeed that they are married, and that the appellant’s claim to be an unmarried mother is a fiction to secure asylum in the United Kingdom. Alternatively, there is no reason why she could not return safely to her home area or alternatively relocate within Bangladesh.
Consideration
12. The appellant claimed asylum on 16 June 2022 and so the claim predates the coming into force of s30 Nationality and Borders Act 2022. Therefore, whilst the burden of proving each element of the case lies on the appellant, the lower standard of proof applies throughout.
13. The FtT accepted that the appellant’s claim of being a single mother of an illegitimate child was capable of amounting to membership of a particular social group under the Refugee Convention. That was not challenged by way of cross-appeal and so we proceed on the basis that, if the issues before us are resolved in the appellant’s favour, it is asylum to which she is entitled rather than humanitarian protection.
14. Nevertheless, there are aspects of the appellant’s claim which critically damage its credibility.
15. First, the FtT’s rejection of the appellant’s claim to be at risk on return to Bangladesh because of political beliefs and activities stands unchallenged and so undisturbed. In particular, the FtT found at [34] that the appellant had not been involved in politics in Bangladesh and had written no articles for publication whilst she was there, and therefore did not accept that the claimed case against the appellant was genuine. Furthermore, it is clear from the FtT’s findings at [32]-[33] that it did not consider the documents relied upon by the appellant from Bangladesh to be genuine. It follows that the appellant’s principal reason for claiming asylum was not even reasonably likely to be true.
16. Second, the FtT’s approach to s8 at [48] has been upheld. We are therefore entitled to treat the appellant’s credibility in general as damaged.
17. Third, the appellant’s account of her relationship with MI is to be so implausible as to be unbelievable. We accept that otherwise religiously observant individuals might well engage in pre-marital sex. Indeed, SA (Divorced woman – illegitimate child) Bangladesh CG [2011] UKUT 00254 specifically addresses the possibility of illegitimate children (see in particular [10] and the guidance at [110(d)], as well as the Home Office Country Policy and Information Note, ‘Bangladesh: Women Facing Gender-Based Violence’, published in January 2024, and in particular paragraph 8.3.8).
18. However, it is striking that the appellant relies on the coincidence of a number of matters, each of which would significantly unfortunate for an individual in her circumstances (a single, Muslim female from Bangladesh, a majority Muslim country which she considered to view extra-marital sex as the gravest of sins, with no guaranteed right to remain after completion of her course of studies) and so would individually be unlikely on the face of it. She started a relationship with a Bangladeshi national who unbeknown to her had refugee status. She had sex without first entering into a Nikkah. She became pregnant on the first occasion of having sex. The father of the child turned out to be homosexual or bisexual. He refused to marry her despite her pleas and it being highly likely that he would know the shame that would bring on her.
19. As it is, the appellant told us that MI ceased to have anything to do with her after learning that she was pregnant. Nevertheless, she accepted that he had attended their son’s birth, had accompanied her to have their child registered, and had been content for their son to have his surname. His attendance at the birth in particular suggests more than MI merely wishing to continue to have a relationship with his son.
20. MI provided the appellant with the documents relied upon at this hearing, despite her claiming that she had not told him about the hearing and that he did not care about her. They comprise not only MI’s biometric permit but also proof of right to work and associated share code, and a universal credit statement (which notably includes a child element, despite it being the appellant’s case that their child lives with her). Quite why a supposed single mother would need any of these document to register her son at school (her explanation for why he provided the documents) is utterly unclear. It seems clear to us that MI is aware of this hearing, and had provided documents to assist her but had chosen not to participate. Given the appellant’s claim that MI has been granted asylum on the basis of his sexuality, it is perhaps unsurprising that he does not want to be asked about his relationship with the appellant and their current living arrangements.
21. Fourth, the appellant’s account of how her situation came to the attention of the clerics who have threatened her and her family is not consistent. In her screening interview on 16 June 2022, the appellant stated that ’everything is fine’ with the progress of her pregnancy and that she was still studying. At her substantive interview on 25 July 2025, the appellant said, ‘since having my baby I had to stop my studies’, albeit she later inconsistently said that she, ‘gave up studies when I got pregnant’.
22. There are further significant inconsistencies. The appellant said that her mother broke off contact when the clerics learned of the pregnancy/birth (which she suggested was shortly after the birth) and then admitted that her mother had sent her materials in support of her appeal in May 2023. She did not adequately explain this inconsistency. The appellant told us that the clerics in Bangladesh had found out about the birth of her child via social media. When asked for further information about how they had realised the second appellant was illegitimate she claimed that she had posted pictures of her and her son on social media but no posts about any marriage. However, the appellant told the First-tier Tribunal that the clerics had found out about the baby from her relatives in Bangladesh. Again, she gave no satisfactory answer for this inconsistency. The appellant has been inconsistent about whether she has relatives in the United Kingdom, denying to the respondent that she had any here. However, her evidence to us was that she lived for some time here with her maternal uncle but that he had rejected her after the child was born.
23. All in all, we do not accept that it is even reasonably likely to be true that the appellant and MI did not at some point marry, most likely before they commenced a sexual relationship but at least before the second appellant was born. Even if the second appellant was born out of wedlock, we do not accept that it is even reasonably likely that she has come to the adverse attention of local clerics as a result, or indeed that she would attract adverse attention such as to amount to persecutory treatment or risk of serious harm when returning home with the second appellant. She had not advanced a credible account of how the clerics would know the status of her child. MI is named as the father on the birth certificate and the second appellant bears his name. The appellant could state in all honesty and without any real risk of harm that she and the second appellant’s father are separated. I stress, nevertheless, that we find that they were married at the time of the second appellant’s birth and in all likelihood continue to be married.
24. Even if the appellant’s account is true, and local clerics have discovered that she has had a child out of wedlock, no cogent evidence has been adduced that she would in fact be at real risk of persecution or serious harm as a consequence. Even the appellant accepts knowing of no occasion where a person in that situation has been stoned. In any event, she is an intelligent and reasonably well educated person (she qualified to undertake a degree course in the United Kingdom) who could relocate internally to an urban centre.
25. We reject the suggestion that her family would not support her in Bangladesh; moreover, they were sufficiently well off to pay for her studies, and would be able to provide any necessary financial assistance. The appellant’s suggestion that any employer would ask to see her marriage certificate is unevidenced and utterly implausible. Even if employers in Bangladesh do ask for the identity of a male guardian, the appellant could reasonably explain that she is separated and that her father was dead; even she appeared to acknowledge that her mother would in those circumstances be considered an appropriate relative whose details could be provided. As it is, even SA suggests that single mothers of illegitimate children can secure employment and accommodation, albeit of a low standard.
26. In summary, the appellant has not made out the factual basis of her claim to the lower standard of proof. Even if she had satisfied us that the second appellant is illegitimate, we do not accept that it is reasonably likely that she would be at risk on return of persecution or serious harm. We are not persuaded that it is reasonably likely that she would have insufficiency of protection against any harm arising from her lack of marital status. In any event, we are no persuaded that it is reasonably likely that she would be unable to relocate reasonably and safely.
Article 8 ECHR
27. We would add that Mr Fazli sought to make submissions on Article 8, if we rejected the appellant’s claimed risk on return but accepted that the appellant was an unmarried mother. He accepted that no challenge had been made to the FtT’s findings on Article 8 but submitted that he would have done so had he appeared at the error of law hearing. The challenge in short was that the situation facing the single mother of an illegitimate child would amount to very significant obstacles to reintegration or give rise to unjustifiably harsh consequences.
28. As we indicated at the hearing, the appellant was professionally represented when applying for permission to appeal and so a litigation choice was made not to appeal the First-tier Tribunal’s Article 8 analysis. The fact that the appellant did not attend and was not represented at the error of law hearing was, again, a choice made by her, presumably on the advice of her professional representatives (who we note were the same then as now). Consequently, the issue was not live at this rehearing. As it is, given our findings on the factual basis of the appellant’s claim (and our findings in the alternative on risk, protection and relocation), we would have been unpersuaded that removal was a disproportionate interference in the appellant’s Article 8 rights.
Notice of Decision
1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error of law and is set aside insofar as it dismissed the appellant’s appeal on the grounds that she claimed to be the single mother of an illegitimate child.
2. Upon remaking the decision, the appeal is dismissed on all grounds.

Sean O’Brien

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

4 November 2025

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001945
UI-2025-001946

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/64913/2023
HU/64915/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

…………………………………

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BLUM
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN

Between

NR
AI
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: none
For the Respondent: Mr Nappey, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 1 July 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellants and any member of their family are granted anonymity.

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

DECISION AND REASONS

Background
1. The appellants have been granted permission by the First-tier Tribunal to appeal a decision by Judge Beg (the judge) dated 13 March 2025 dismissing their appeals against decisions by the respondent dated 14 December 2023 to refuse the appellants’ protection and human rights claims.
2. The appellants, mother and young son, are citizens of Bangladesh. The son’s claim is wholly dependent on his mother’s claim. We will hereafter refer to the mother simply as ‘the appellant’. Both arrived in the UK on 5 November 2021.
3. The appellant’s protection claim has two prongs. She maintains that she would be targeted by the Chhatra League, which is the student wing of the Awami League, and by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a Bangladeshi paramilitary organisation. According to Home Office documents, Bangladesh's interim government listed the Chhatra League as a terrorist organisation in September 2024. The appellant claims that members of the Chhatra League disturbed her studies and threatened her when she lived in Bangladesh. The appellant further claims that a criminal case was brought against her for a comment she wrote in the daily Nobojug News magazine on 3 May 2023 that criticised the then Bangladeshi government, the Chhatra League and the RAB. In support of her claim the appellant produced the complaint document purportedly issued by the Administrative Court, Lohagra, Narail that listed her as accused number 15 out of 42. The appellant also provided a report from 2023 purportedly issued from a Bangladesh advocate relating to the progress of the criminal case, and a further report from a different advocate dated 11 March 2025 asserting that the criminal case against the appellant remained pending and that an arrest warrant for the appellant also continued to exist.
4. Quite apart from her fear of the Chhatra League and the RAB, the appellant also maintains that she would be targeted by religious extremists in Bangladesh because she had a child out of wedlock in the United Kingdom. She claimed that her mother had been threatened by Islamic teachers because of the illegitimate child and her family were informed that she will be punished when she returns to Bangladesh.
The First-tier Tribunal (IAC) decision
5. Having heard oral evidence from the appellant the judge dismissed both appeals. The judge noted the general nature of the criminal complaint document and attached limited weight to the advocate’s report as there was no corroborative evidence from the court of his purported visit and there was no additional documentary evidence from the court that the complaint filed against the appellant was genuine. The judge relied on the report of a Home Office fact-finding mission in Bangladesh from September 2017 relating to the ease of obtaining forged and fraudulently issued documents, and a similar 2021 report issued by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. The judge did not find the documents provided by the appellant to be reliable or credible. The judge did not therefore accept that the case against the appellant was genuine. The judge found that even if the criminal case against the appellant was genuine there was no explanation why a lawyer had not been instructed to represent the appellant, and that, in any event, the motivation for a prosecution at the behest of the Awami League had gone since the League’s displacement from power. The judge also referred to the appellant’s acceptance, in cross-examination, that her claimed fear of persecution from the Chhatra League existed when she entered the UK in November 2021. The judge drew an adverse inference under section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004 (the 2004 Act) because of the appellant’s delay in claiming asylum.
6. The judge did not accept that the appellant’s child was illegitimate and the judge rejected the appellant’s claim that she and her child would be targeted by religious extremists in Bangladesh or that she would suffer discrimination, social isolation and stigma as a single mother of an illegitimate child in Bangladesh.
The challenge to the First-tier Tribunal (IAC)’s decision and discussion
7. The grounds of appeal to the Upper Tribunal took issue with (1) the judge’s approach to the circumstances of the child’s birth, (2) with the drawing of the adverse inference under section 8 of the 2004 Act, and (3) with the judge’s categorisation of the appellant’s legal status when she entered the United Kingdom as a student as “precarious”. There was no challenge against the judge’s specific findings in respect of the reliability of the documents provided by the appellant. Nor was there any challenge to the judge’s alternative assessment of the likelihood of any prosecution continuing given the change in government in Bangladesh in 2024.
8. The appellant’s legal representatives indicated in correspondence that they were not instructed to represent the appellant at the hearing for financial reasons, and that the appellant would not be attending the hearing. We were satisfied that the appellant was notified of the hearing, was aware of the hearing, and that it was in the interests of justice to proceed with the hearing, in accordance with rule 38 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008.
9. In a Rule 24 response following the grant of permission to appeal the Home Office conceded that the First-tier Tribunal judge made a material error of law in the part of her decision dealing with any risk facing the appellant because of the circumstances of her child’s birth. At the Upper Tribunal hearing the Home Office Presenting Officer confirmed the concession. We agree that this concession was properly made. In rejecting the appellant’s claim that her child was illegitimate the judge acted in a procedurally unfair manner by failing to put her specific concerns to the appellant, by making assumptions as to how a religiously observant individual would act, and by drawing inferences without adequate consideration of Country Guidance decisions (SA (Divorced woman – illegitimate child) Bangladesh CG [2011] UKUT 00254), which specifically addressed the possibility of illegitimate children, and relevant Home Office Guidance (Country Policy and Information Note on Bangladesh: Women Facing Gender-Based Violence, January 2024, at 8.3.8).
10. The second ground of appeal contends that the judge wrongly interpreted or applied section 8 of the 2004 Act. It is contended that the adverse inference drawn by the judge from the delay in claiming asylum was inconsistent with the decision in SM (Section 8: Judge’s process) [2005] UKAIT 116.
11. Section 8 of the 2004 Act is mandatory and requires a deciding authority to take into account, as damaging an appellant’s credibility, certain behaviour including a delay in claiming asylum when in a safe country. A judge should however look at the evidence as a whole and conduct a global assessment of credibility, and the weight to be given to the behaviour is a matter for the judge (SM, JT (Cameroon) v SSHD [2008] EWCA Civ 878
12. It is apparent from a holistic reading of the decision that the judge considered the requirement of section 8 as part of her global assessment of credibility and in conjunction with the totality of the evidence before her. The judge conducted a detailed assessment of the appellant’s claimed fear from the Chhatra League and the RAB. The evidence that was before the judge supported her finding that it was the threats to the appellant from the Chhatra League that triggered the appellant’s departure from Bangladesh and the making of her asylum claim. Contrary to the assertion in the grounds that it was the publication of the article in May 2023 that triggered the asylum claim, the appellant claimed asylum on 16 June 2022. In her screening interview the appellant claimed that she came to the UK to study and because of the political trouble she experienced, and that the alleged threats from the Chhatra League were made before she came to the UK. We do not accept the contention in the grounds that the judge failed to lawfully apply section 8 of the 2004 Act. The judge was aware that the appellant entered the UK with lawful leave as a student and that her leave was valid until September 2025, but she was entitled to conclude, having holistic regard to her other findings, that the delay in claiming asylum was a factor that damaged the appellant’s credibility.
13. The First-tier Tribunal (IAC) judge who granted permission found there was no merit in the third ground. We agree. The appellant entered the UK with limited leave to remain as a student. She never had settled status, and was not present in the UK in a category that leads to settlement. In Rhuppiah (Appellant) v SSHD (Respondent) [2018] UKSC 58 the Supreme Court stated, at [44], that that everyone who, not being a UK citizen, is present in the UK and who has leave to reside here other than to do so indefinitely has a precarious immigration status for the purposes of section 117B(5). The appellant’s immigration status was therefore precarious and the judge made no error in her assessment.
14. The remaking of the appeal will be retained in the Upper Tribunal and, given the appellant’s absence, adjourned to another day. The re-making hearing will focus exclusively on the issue of whether the appellant’s son is illegitimate, and whether the appellant holds a well founded-fear of persecution if removed to Bangladesh as a single woman with an illegitimate child.
Notice of Decision
The making of the First-tier Tribunal’s decision involved the making of an error on a point of law requiring it to be set aside in respect of one aspect of the protection claim.
The appeal will be remade at a further hearing before the Upper Tribunal to determine the issue identified in paragraph 13 above.

D. Blum

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

10 July 2025