Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002163

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/63895/2023
LH/04241/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 31 October 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE NEVILLE
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE JOLLIFFE

Between

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
-And-

SM
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Ojo, Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Mr E Fripp, counsel instructed by Waterstone Legal

Heard at Field House on 14 July 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the respondent SM and his daughter are granted anonymity. No-one shall publish or reveal any information 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

Introduction
1. The appellant in this case is the Home Office, which appeals against a decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Latta to allow the appeal of the respondent. The respondent in this case is a national of Albania, whose date of birth is 17 July 1985.
2. The respondent’s immigration history is troubling. He was previously deported from the UK. Notwithstanding this, he re-entered the UK in September 2016, and has lived in this country without lawful leave since then.
3. He made representations against his deportation on 3rd January 2019, and made an application for leave to remain on the basis of Article 8 family and private life right on 22nd July 2022.
4. The respondent refused that application by a decision dated 21st March 2023. The appellant appealed against that decision, and the appeal came before First-tier Tribunal Judge Latta on 23rd March 2025, and judgment was promulgated on 4th April 2025.
5. It was agreed that the relevant legal framework for the appeal was under section 117C of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, and that the structured approach under that section should be adopted.
6. Section 117C provides that the deportation of foreign criminals is in the national interest, and provides for exceptions from that principle in certain circumstances. The relevant exception was where the foreign criminal has a genuine and subsisting relationship with a qualifying child, and the effect of his deportation on the child would be unduly harsh.
7. It was agreed that the respondent is the biological father of DSB, who was born in the UK in September 2016. The respondent is no longer in a relationship with DSB’s mother. She has been granted refugee status in the UK, and is the primary carer of her daughter. Their daughter DSB has refugee status in the UK as the dependent of her mother.
8. The Home Office accepted that since DSB was a refugee from Albania, she could not return to that country.
9. The Home Office’s position was that the respondent did not have a genuine and subsisting relationship with his daughter, and it was noted that there was no evidence of any relationship between them before 2022. It was also noted that his name was not on her birth certificate, which was said to suggest that that the relationship was not genuine and subsisting.
10. The judge accepted the respondent’s oral and documentary evidence about his relationship with his daughter, noting that he collected her from school 4 or 5 times per week and saw her at the weekends, and concluded that there was a genuine and subsisting relationship between them.
11. The judge directed himself to HA (Iraq) v SSHD [2022] UKSC 22 and the guidance on the meaning of “unduly harsh”.
12. Having directed himself, the judge found that separating the respondent and DSB would be unduly harsh given that she would not be able to visit him in Albania, given their strong attachment to one another, and given the evidence of the Independent Social Worker that it was imperative that they maintain a secure rather than “disrupted attachment” relationship. On that basis the appeal was allowed.
13. The Home Office sought to appeal on the bases that the judge had not given adequate reasons for his findings in respect of the Independent Social Worker’s evidence, and had failed properly to direct himself on the legal meaning of “unduly harsh”. It was submitted that “the test of ‘unduly harsh’ is an extremely demanding one”.
14. Permission was granted by First-tier Tribunal Judge Le Grys on 19th May 2025.
Anonymity
15. The respondent sought anonymity on the basis that his former partner and DSB are both refugees. The Presenting Officer did not object to the application, and the Tribunal was content to accede to it.
The issues and the hearing
16. There was an issue between the parties about the evidence of the Independent Social Worker. The Home Office’s application for permission to appeal was advanced on the basis that there was one report by the ISW. See at page 20 of the electronic bundle, paragraph 2 where in 2 places a single report was referred to, rather than multiple reports:
“The FTTJ relies on the independent social worker’s report, referring at [55] to findings that separation would lead to a ‘significant loss’ and that DSB is considered to be vulnerable … the FTTJ has failed to give reasons for accepting the findings of the ISW’s report, there is, for example, no scrutiny of the methodology used beyond an observation that DSB was interviewed.”
17. The author of the application for permission to appeal appears not to have been aware that there were 2 reports.
18. However, it is clear that there were 2 reports by the ISW – an initial report dated 8 April 2024 at pages 122-126 of the electronic bundle, and a final report dated 3 July 2024 at pages 301-318.
19. First-tier Tribunal Judge Latta was aware that there were 2 reports, as can be seen for example by the reference at paragraph 46 of the judgment to the draft and final reports.
20. The Presenting Officer acknowledged that his colleague had not taken account of the 2nd report from the ISW in settling the application for permission to appeal, but accepted that both reports had been uploaded.
21. In light of that acknowledgment, the Presenting Officer did not seek to address the Tribunal about the issue of the reasons given by First-tier Tribunal Judge Latta for accepting the ISW’s evidence, and he relied on the written submissions in relation to whether the judge had misdirected himself on the law concerning whether it would be unduly harsh for the respondent to be required to go to Albania.
22. Mr Fripp had submitted a skeleton argument dated 10th July 2025, by which he submitted that the Home Office had not sought to challenge the ISW’s evidence before the First-tier Tribunal; that the reasons given for accepting her evidence were legally adequate; and that First-tier Tribunal Judge Latta had expressly directed himself to the Supreme Court’s judgment in HA (Iraq) v SSHD, and there was no meritorious criticism to be made of the judge’s approach to undue harshness.
23. He expanded on his skeleton argument in oral argument. He submitted that when making findings, the judge had examined all the evidence, including but by no means limited to the ISW’s evidence. If the Home Office wished to dispute a particular finding, it was incumbent on it to have challenged it before the judge, consistently with the ordinary principles as recently set out by the Supreme Court in TUI UK Ltd v Griffiths [2023] UKSC 48. The Home Office had not sought to cross examine the ISW or otherwise dispute the report, and it was too late to do so now. In any event, the reasons given for accepting the ISW’s evidence were adequate, and arguably more than adequate.
Decision
24. The classic statement concerning the public law obligation to give reasons comes from the speech of Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood in South Buckinghamshire DC v Porter (No2) [2004] UKHL 33:
“36. The reasons for a decision must be intelligible and they must be adequate. They must enable the reader to understand why the matter was decided as it was and what conclusions were reached on the "principal important controversial issues", disclosing how any issue of law or fact was resolved. Reasons can be briefly stated, the degree of particularity required depending entirely on the nature of the issues falling for decision. The reasoning must not give rise to a substantial doubt as to whether the decision-maker erred in law, for example by misunderstanding some relevant policy or some other important matter or by failing to reach a rational decision on relevant grounds. But such adverse inference will not readily be drawn. The reasons need refer only to the main issues in the dispute, not to every material consideration … Decision letters must be read in a straightforward manner, recognising that they are addressed to parties well aware of the issues involved and the arguments advanced. A reasons challenge will only succeed if the party aggrieved can satisfy the court that he has genuinely been substantially prejudiced by the failure to provide an adequately reasoned decision.”
25. The initial ISW report dated 8th April 2024 is directed at identifying the best interests of DSB. It was based on the ISW’s observation of a contact session between the respondent and DSB. DSB was experiencing emotional and behavioural issues, for which she was receiving talking therapy. DSB was preoccupied with concerns that her father might be deported, and had said that “the most important thing is that he is able to stay.”
26. The ISW noted that DSB’s school was closed for the Easter holidays, and so it had not been possible for her to see all relevant information in order to assess her emotional wellbeing and to assess the emotional impact of separation from her father.
27. The ISW’s final report is dated 3 July 2024. It identified the ISW’s observation of the contact between DSB and the respondent, her interviews with DSB and with DSB’s mother. DSB’s mother had commented that the respondent meant everything to DSB, and spent a lot of time and money on taking her to ballet, to parties and other places, as well as attending her parents’ evenings.
28. The ISW had also made inquiries with the safeguarding lead at DSB’s school. The school had noticed that DSB was very concerned about her father’s wellbeing and the risk that he might be deported, and they had put in place regular sessions to support her and develop her resilience.
29. Having evaluated the evidence, the ISW concluded that in her professional judgment it was “imperative” that DSB kept up a secure attachment with the respondent. Doing so would support her emotional and other needs.
30. First-tier Tribunal Judge Latta accepted this evidence, and noted that this was a case where DSB and her mother could not travel to Albania to visit the respondent because of their asylum status. He found that DSB is a vulnerable child, and that losing physical contact with her father would be detrimental and would have a significant impact on her, such that to do so would meet the high threshold of being unduly harsh.
31. The judge’s findings were sufficiently reasoned. The reader can understand why the judge decided the case as he did, and what conclusions he reached on the controversial issue, i.e. undue harshness. The judge’s reasons are brief, but not impermissibly brief. Overall, the reasons are sufficient for the purposes of Porter (No.2).
32. The Tribunal might have formed a different view of that issue if the Home Office had advanced evidence to counter the reports of the ISW, or if the Home Office had taken steps to challenge that evidence, for example through cross-examination. If one or both of those steps had been taken, the task of the judge resolving the issue would have been more complex, and the Tribunal might well have expected more reasoning. However, the Home Office chose not to take either of those steps. In those circumstances, the reasoning is legally sufficient.
33. The other ground of appeal can be dealt with more briefly.
34. It is apparent that First-tier Tribunal Judge Latta correctly directed himself to the legal test derived from section 117 and the judgment of the Supreme Court in HA (Iraq) in paragraphs 36-39, 50 and 58-62. He commented “harsh” in this context denotes something that is severe or bleak, and that the addition of unduly raises this already elevated standard even higher.” That is a correct statement of the law.
35. The application for permission to appeal cites a number of other judgments concerning the undue harshness, including SSHD v PG (Jamaica) [2019] EWCA Civ 1213, KO (Nigeria) and others v SSHD [2018] UKSC 53 and MK (Sierra Leone) v SSHD [2015] UKUT 223 (IAC).
36. However, those authorities do not cast doubt on the Court’s ruling in HA (Iraq), or on the correctness of the judge’s direction to himself on the issue of undue harshness.
37. It is not necessary for a First-tier Tribunal judge to cite multiple authorities, and to do so is often contrary to the interests of brevity and concision in judgments.
38. Accordingly there is no error of law in the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Latta.

Notice of Decision

i. The Secretary of State’s appeal is dismissed.
ii. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal to allow SM’s appeal stands.

John Jolliffe

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

30 October 2025