Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002395

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/65525/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On the 11 August 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LOUGHRAN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE WILLIAMS

Between

AI
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr C Rahman of Counsel, instructed by Longfellow & Co Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr K Ojo, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 30 July 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 the permission of First-tier Tribunal Judge Mulready against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Jones (‘the Judge’), promulgated on 6th December 2024.
2. By her decision, the Judge dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the refusal of his protection and human rights claims.
Background
3. The appellant is a national of Pakistan who entered the United Kingdom on 2nd December 2019. On 19th February 2020, he made a protection claim asserting that he would be at risk upon return to Pakistan as a member of a particular social group, i.e. he is a person born with disabilities including hearing impairment, learning disability and muscle development.
4. The appellant’s claim was advanced on the basis that whilst in Pakistan, he experienced discrimination from family and community, that he was called names and prevented from attending school, employment and social events. He claimed to have been physically abused and was the victim of sexual assault from a shopkeeper. The appellant stated that if returned to Pakistan, he would be at risk from his father, and the wider community and extended family.
5. The respondent accepted all of these facts but did not accept the appellant had been treated as a ‘slave’ by his parents. She deemed the appellant’s evidence on attending school as inconsistent, because his parents supported him in gaining this placement. It was asserted his parents must have supported him in obtaining school supplies. The respondent took into account the willingness of the appellant’s father to confront the man who sexually assaulted him, and reporting this man to the police. It was also deemed implausible the arrangements for the appellant’s visa would have been completed without the help of his parents.
6. The respondent refused the claim, concluding there was no risk of harm because the appellant’s family members were supportive. Even if he was at risk, it was asserted there would be sufficient protection available to him, having regard to AW (sufficiency of protection) Pakistan [2011] UKUT 31. It was accepted that the appellant could not relocate alone within Pakistan, but that he could return to his local community and be supported by his grandparents.
The appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
7. The appeal came before the Judge sitting at the Hatton Cross hearing centre on 26th November 2024. The appellant was represented by Mr Chowdhury and the respondent by a Presenting Officer. The Judge heard evidence from the appellant, who appeared via Cloud Video Platform along with the interpreter and Mr Chowdhury. The decision does not record any difficulties with communication or interpretation. The Judge heard submissions from both representatives.
8. By her reserved decision, the Judge dismissed the appeal on asylum, humanitarian protection and Article 8 grounds. Her findings in summary were that there were elements of the appellant’s account which were ‘inconsistent, incoherent or so implausible as to be incapable of belief’. The Judge provided 4 examples of these credibility issues at [17]. She further found there would be family support open to the appellant [18], and that even if the appellant were credible, there would be sufficient protection available to him, bearing in mind his past residence at a shelter [19].
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
9. The appellant sought permission to appeal. Whilst the grounds are slightly difficult to follow, they were summarised by First-tier Judge Mulready when granting permission as a complaint that the Judge had given inadequate reasons for findings against the appellant, particularly in light of the respondent’s acceptance of ‘significant parts of the appellant’s account’.
10. Judge Mulready also observed there did not appear to be adequate consideration of the impact of the Appellant’s learning difficulties and past persecution, although this was not pursued before us at the hearing.
11. The appeal came before us at Field House with all parties attending in person. We were provided with a composite bundle of 180 pages, and a Rule 24 response from the respondent dated 10th June 2025.
The appellant’s submissions
12. Before us, Mr Chowdhury drew our attention to the elements of the appellant’s account which had been accepted by the respondent. The accepted facts are recorded in the Judge’s decision at [7]. It was accepted the appellant was born with disabilities including hearing impairment, learning disability and muscle development, which affects the appellant’s speech and physical appearance; the appellant has been discriminated against by family and community, in the form of name calling and being denied access to school, employment and social events; the appellant has been physically abused by family members and community, in school, public and at home, and the appellant suffered a sexual assault as a child by a shopkeeper.
13. It was said the Judge failed to then adequately reason her findings that the appellant would not be at risk upon return, those accepted facts notwithstanding. Further, the Judge had concluded the appellant would have family support on return simply because of the assumed assistance the family had provided to him in relation to his visa application. Mr Chowdhury submitted the Judge had failed to take into account whether his family (specifically his father) simply wanted the appellant gone.
14. The Judge’s finding that there would be sufficiency of protection available to the appellant did not engage with the evidence before her that the appellant had previously been in a shelter, but that his account was that he was there for around two weeks before his father attended the shelter with other men from their village looking for the appellant. As a result, he had to leave the shelter and go to his grandparents’ home. It could not be said in these circumstances that a shelter was an adequate form of protection for the appellant.
15. We were invited to find there was a material error of law, such that the decision should be set aside.
The respondent’s submissions
16. Mr Ojo submitted the respondent maintained her opposition to the appeal. He had reviewed the note of the Presenting Officer who appeared below, and the note indicated the Judge had agreed to treat the appellant as a vulnerable witness. The appellant’s witness statement was detailed and did not appear to show the appellant was someone who had particular difficulty in recalling events or describing them.
17. Whilst there was an acceptance the appellant had been mistreated by members of his family, those family members had not been identified and there was no explicit acceptance by the Judge or the respondent that these family members included the appellant’s father. It was therefore open to the Judge to find the appellant’s father could act as a form of support to him upon return, especially when the appellant’s visa application form gave his address as that of his parents.
18. The Judge referred to the country guidance, as well as to the respondent’s CPIN, and was entitled to find there was sufficiency of protection. We were invited to conclude the decision did not disclose any material error of law.
Analysis
19. We start our consideration by reminding ourselves of the guidance given in South Bucks County Council -v- Porter [2004] UKHL 33; 2004 1 WLR 1953 at para [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 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 dispute, not to every material consideration…”
20. We found the respondent’s position in the decision under challenge and in the review in respect of the appellant’s claim to be somewhat confusing. The refusal decision lists a number of material facts accepted by the decision maker and does not contain any facts which are said to be rejected. The refusal decision does then continue to list a number of credibility issues taken against the appellant; however, these issues appear to undermine the concessions already made about the truthfulness of the appellant’s claim.
21. Almost all of the credibility points taken against the appellant pertain to the putative inconsistency between his evidence that his parents mistreated him, but the instances at which they provided (or are assumed to have provided) assistance to him. Mr Ojo invited us to consider that the respondent had not identified particularly which family members the appellant was accepted to fear. We do not find this is a factor in the respondent’s favour, as it indicates a lack of clarity to her position.
22. In any event, the respondent summarised the appellant’s claim under ‘basis of claim’ in the refusal decision as ‘if returned to Pakistan, you fear abuse, discrimination as possible killing by your Father, other relatives and community people’. We are therefore satisfied that the respondent’s concession the appellant was discriminated against by family is likely to have included his father.
23. Having carefully considered the Judge’s decision, we agree with Mr Chowdhury’s submission that the reasons given are inadequate such that they do not disclose to the appellant why elements of his claim have been rejected. At [17] the Judge weighs in the appellant's favour that much of his account has been accepted by the respondent but finds that there are elements of the appellant’s account “which are inconsistent, incoherent or so implausible as to be incapable of belief.” The Judge concludes that these “inconsistencies go to the nature of the Appellant’s relationship with his parents, and contrary to his assertion that he is a slave to his parents and would be killed by his father on return.” The Judge then purports to give four examples of when the appellant has been cared for by his parents. Only one of these examples specifically relates to the appellant’s father.
24. The example that purports to be of when the appellant “has been cared for” by his father is the willingness of the appellant’s father to confront a man who had sexually assaulted the appellant. We do not find the Judge has provided adequate reasons as to why this undermined the appellant’s claim to have been mistreated by his father because of his disability. We also consider that the Judge failed to consider the appellant’s evidence in the witness statement which is that this event took place in 2011 and was by his own evidence the start of a chain of events including his father leaving his job and having to return to the home of the appellant’s paternal grandparents.
25. At [19] the Judge repeats her finding that elements of his account are “inconsistent, incoherent or so implausible as to be incapable of belief” and concludes that “these deficiencies in his account are determinative.” Other than the four examples she gives of when the appellant has been cared for by his parents, she does not identify which elements of his account are inconsistent, incoherent or implausible. We are not satisfied that the Judge has sufficiently reasoned why the four examples she provides of the appellant’s parents caring for him are deficient or why they are determinative that there is no risk of harm from his father (and other family members).
26. We further find that the submission in relation to the Judge’s consideration of the issue of sufficiency of protection is also made out.
27. The Judge at [20] found the appellant’s experience of being taken to a shelter in the past demonstrates there is protection to available to him in his home region. There is no engagement at all with the appellant’s evidence that he was at the shelter for two weeks before members of his family arrived and became aggressive such that the police had to be called. The appellant’s evidence is that the police took no action and referred to the situation as a ‘domestic dispute’. We do not know what the Judge made of this evidence because she does not engage with it or reason why, in light of that evidence, a shelter is evidence of sufficient protection.
28. We therefore find, taking these points together, that the decision of the Judge is vitiated by a material error of law such that it cannot stand. We are satisfied that the errors we have identified infect the entire decision and no findings of fact can be preserved.
Disposal
29. Whilst we have taken into account the difficulties which might be faced by the appellant in attending another hearing, we consider, having regard to what is said in AEB [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC), that the hearing should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard afresh.
Notice of Decision
The decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Jones contains material errors of law. The decision is set aside and is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal with no findings of fact preserved.

CJ Williams

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

7th August 2025