Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-002651
PA/65170/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

7th October 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BRUCE
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE CONNAL

Between

QR (CONGO) + 2
(anonymity order made)
Appellant
And

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Cox, Counsel instructed by Latta and Co
For the Respondent: Mr Mullen, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Melville Street, Edinburgh, on 25 June 2026

Anonymity

Unless and until a tribunal or court directs otherwise, the appellant is granted anonymity. No report of these proceedings shall directly or indirectly identify her or any member of her family. This direction applies both to the appellant and to the respondent. Failure to comply with this direction could lead to contempt of court proceedings.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The Appellant is a national of Congo (Brazzaville) born in 1989. Her dependents are her two children, C1 and C2. They seek protection in the United Kingdom on the grounds that they face a real risk of persecution in Congo. In the alternative they seek leave to remain on human rights grounds.

Case History
2. This matter now has a long and complex history, not all of which is relevant to the final decision that we must make. We set it out here as a matter of record.
Basis of Claim
3. The Appellant and her children arrived in the UK on the 10 August 2019. She claimed asylum some two weeks later, on 26 August 2019.
4. The basis of the protection claim was as follows. In 2018 she was living with her children and their father in Brazzaville. Her partner P.O worked for an opposition group she knew as CADD-MJ. She was not a supporter of this group herself, and she knew little about it. What she was able to say was that her partner’s boss was arrested in 2017 and that by August 2018 her partner was afraid that the authorities were going to come for him. He therefore left the family home and went into hiding. A few days later the police came to the house looking for him. They took the Appellant to the police station where she was held for a day and questioned about her partner’s whereabouts. She said that she did not know where he was, which was true. In the evening the police told her that they would release her and take her home. She was taken in a car with three officers. Instead of taking her home they drove her to a park where they each raped her. She was abandoned there. She was assisted by a passer-by who got her back to her parents’ house. She and the children moved to stay with her parents for a few days before escaping across the river to Kinshasa.
5. The Appellant averred that whilst in Kinshasa she was without support, and facing destitution. In order to provide for herself and the children she took up sex work. She did this for about a year. One of her clients agreed to help her to get out. He arranged for visas and tickets and brought them all to the UK, travelling via Ethiopia. He stayed for a short time and then left, having instructed her to seek help from the authorities.
6. The Appellant waited over three years to be interviewed. Her first substantive interview took place on the 18 October 2022. She was asked over 300 questions. At the conclusion of that interview she was told that her case was being referred to the Competent Authority so that consideration could be given as to whether she was a victim of trafficking. She was told that this could result in a 45 day delay. She consented to this referral.
7. On the 7 December 2022 the Appellant underwent a second substantive interview, conducted remotely, with the Appellant, the immigration officer and the interpreter all in different locations. She was asked a further 125 questions, mainly about the names used on the applications for the visas that she, her children and her former client had travelled to the UK using.
The Respondent’s Refusal Letter
8. The Appellant waited almost another year for a decision on whether she needed protection. The quality of that decision, when it eventually came on 11 November 2023, was extraordinarily poor. Firstly, pro-forma text has been left in, highlighted in blue, so that paragraphs bear headings like this: “Tailor the following paragraph as appropriate as not all credibility indicators will be relevant to every claim”. Leaving in such administrative instructions does not give assurance to the reader, much less the applicant, that her claim has been seriously and individually considered. The decision maker also appears to have applied the provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which has no application to this claim, which was made as long ago as August 2019. Finally, and most seriously, reasons are given for refusing this claim which reveal the decision maker to have little acquaintance with trite principles of law and evidence in this jurisdiction. The Appellant is, for instance, criticised for her lack of knowledge about her partner’s work, political activities or even what he may or may not have done during an anti-government riot. This is found to damage her credibility as a witness, contrary to the express guidance given to Home Office decision makers. See Gender Issues in the Asylum Claim (version 3.0 April 2018):
“Difficulty in providing information relevant to a protection claim may not of itself undermine credibility. For example, in certain cultures men do not share information about their political, military or even social activities with their female relatives and you must consider whether this might account for gaps in a woman's knowledge”.
9. The best point made in the refusal letter as a reason for disbelieving the Appellant was however a good one. That is that on a date when she claims to have still been working in Kinshasa, she was in fact in Nairobi, Kenya:
“Home office records show that you had your biometric readings and fingerprints taken in Nairobi on 14/06/2019. With Nairobi being the capital of Kenya, and you stating that your fingerprints were taken in the DRC, this damages the credibility of your claim”.
10. The letter further explains that on the date that these biometric readings were taken, the Appellant, her children and the man with whom they were travelling submitted documents in support of visa applications which indicated that she and that man were married, and that he, not PO, was the father of the children. The documents were evidently accepted as genuine, and visas issued which enabled the group to make their way to the United Kingdom. If of course that is correct, this would go some way to undermining the Appellant’s credibility as a witness, since she has consistently denied ever having been to Kenya, and is now living in a completely different identity.
The First-tier Tribunal Decision
11. It was the issue about the biometrics that ultimately led the First-tier Tribunal to dismiss the Appellant’s appeal on protection grounds. In its decision dated 27 October 2024 the Tribunal placed “significant weight” on the allegations in the refusal letter about the biometrics, finding in effect that this damaged the Appellant’s credibility so profoundly that nothing she said could be accepted.
Error of Law
12. The Appellant was granted permission to appeal against that decision on 16 July 2025 by Upper Tribunal Judge Neville.
13. On 27 November 2025 the matter came before Judge Bruce, sitting alone. On that occasion the Respondent was represented by Mr Mullen who conceded that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in law, in brief summary because it treated the Respondent’s assertions about the Nairobi biometrics and documents as established fact, without having seen any actual evidence in support of them. Despite there being some 11 months between the refusal and the appeal hearing in the First-tier Tribunal, the Respondent had failed to substantiate her allegations with the production of the biometrics and documents in question. Whilst noting the lack of evidence to be “unhelpful”, and the assertions in the refusal letter to be “hearsay”, the First-tier Tribunal nevertheless found the assertions made by the Respondent to be reliable, and placed the burden on the Appellant to disprove the allegation.
14. Before Judge Bruce, Mr Mullen for the Secretary of State accepted that this approach is quite obviously at odds with rule 13 of the Procedure Rules, and to the guidance in MH (Respondent’s bundle: documents not provided) Pakistan [2010] UKUT 168 (IAC) and Cvetkos (visa – no file produced – directions) Latvia [2011] UKUT 00212 (IAC). The Tribunal’s characterisation of the assertions in the refusal letter as “hearsay” entirely misses the point. These were allegations that had, for reasons of fairness and logic, to be supported by actual evidence.
15. In the absence of such evidence there were a number of options open to the Tribunal. It could, in light of the authorities cited above, have proceeded on the basis that the allegations were not relied upon: they did not feature in the Respondent’s review of 6 May 2024, nor in the ‘matters in issue’ identified by the parties, so this was possibly the view taken by the Presenting Officer on the day. Alternatively the Tribunal could simply have found the allegations unproven. It could, had it been so minded, have concluded that the appeal could not be justly determined without the evidence being available, and made directions for its production. Instead the Tribunal appears to blame the Appellant for not demanding production, or for failing to challenge the veracity of documents she had not seen. Putting to one side the Tribunal’s failure to apply the mandatory requirements of rule 13, there was simply no justification for this reversal of the burden of proof. This was a significant procedural error. Judge Bruce therefore concluded, in her written decision of 30 November 2025, that the decision of the First-tier Tribunal must, with the Secretary of State’s consent, be set aside.
The Re-Making: Developments and Matters in Issue
16. Given the already unacceptable delay there had been in disposing of this claim, Judge Bruce then endeavoured to remake the decision on the evidence before her. This consisted of the Appellant’s evidence, as it appeared in five different documentary sources (screening interview, first substantive asylum interview, second substantive asylum interview, two witness statements), and country background material relating to political oppression in Congo. Having reviewed that material Judge Bruce found that the Appellant had been largely consistent in respect of what happened to her in Congo and why she had to leave. Further, her evidence was consonant with country background information about what was happening in that country at the relevant time. Judge Bruce noted that she had, since her arrival in Scotland, been receiving support from Freedom From Torture, and that there was by then a decision from the Competent Authority stating that there were ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that the Appellant was a victim of trafficking. All of that evidence pointed in one direction.
17. That said, there was that one significant area of the Appellant’s evidence that was problematic. In the decision dated 30 November 2025 Judge Bruce put it like this:
“Despite the failure to produce the actual documents relating to the Nairobi applications, the Respondent had taken several opportunities to ask the Appellant about how she and the children got to the UK. It had been put to the Appellant that a name had been given – for the purpose of this decision ‘name A’ – as the children’s father. ‘Name A’ was not PO. Who then was he? At the interview on 18 October 2022 [at Q307-310] the Appellant is recorded as saying that ‘name A’ is her father’s name, and that she gave her children some elements of that name. Perhaps having noted that the Appellant had given an entirely different name for her father in her first witness statement, the Respondent pushed the point during the second interview on 7 December 2022. On that occasion the Appellant states [at Q100] that ‘name A’ in fact belongs to her children’s paternal great grandfather, and that PO decided to give the children elements of that name as a homage. Things become even more confusing by the end of that interview, when [in response to Q110] the Appellant states that PO decided to record the children’s father’s name as ‘name A’ because in Congo it is lawful to do so (ie name their paternal great grandfather as their father). The waters are muddied yet further by the Appellant’s second witness statement in which she states [at paragraph 1.3,] that ‘name A’ is in fact her father-in-law.
There are several potential explanations for all of this. The Appellant was being asked about ‘name A’ through an interpreter speaking a mixture of Lingala and French, who was appearing remotely. I do not know, but perhaps there is room for confusion in Lingala about which male relative is being discussed. The Appellant may have been tired, or confused, due to trauma. It was put to her that ‘name A’ appeared on the children’s birth certificates. She may not have known what birth certificates she was being asked about: she could not know whether these are the birth certificates lawfully issued to these children by the Congolese authorities, those same certificates unlawfully altered, or even entirely false certificates procured by the client in Kinshasa whom she says helped get her out. It might be that there are naming conventions of the kind she suggests in Congolese culture. It might be that she is deliberately seeking to conceal the true facts in respect of this particular issue: in this regard I note that the Competent Authority have found at least ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that she is a victim of trafficking and that her Kinshasa client, no matter how seemingly benevolent, was a paying customer and an associate of the ‘Big Boss’ who ran the prostitution operation. Or, of course, it could be that PO and the attendant persecution she suffered are a fiction, and that she is actually married to ‘name A’, who is in fact the father of her children”.
18. Having identified these issues in the Appellant’s evidence, Judge Bruce decided that the Appellant should, as a matter of fairness, be given an opportunity to speak to the discrepancies. She directed that the hearing be reconvened at the first available date.
19. The matter came back before Judge Bruce, sitting in Edinburgh on 5 February 2026. On that occasion Mr Mullen for the Respondent made an application to adduce the missing Nairobi documents. Mr Cox opposed that application on the basis that they were highly prejudicial to the Appellant, and had come very late in the day. Whilst agreeing with both of Mr Cox’s observations, Judge Bruce decided to admit the evidence on the basis that they were highly pertinent to the resolution of the protection claim. Mr Cox applied for the matter to be adjourned, to give him an opportunity to take instructions from the Appellant. Judge Bruce agreed.
20. On 7 May 2026 Principal Resident Judge Keith signed a transfer order enabling Judge Connal to join the panel.
21. In the hiatus between the hearing being adjourned in February, and it being relisted on 25 June 2026, two significant developments had occurred.
22. The first was that a further decision by the Competent Authority had come to light, in which it had found conclusive grounds to believe that the Appellant was a “victim of trafficking in Congo (Brazzaville), the Democratic Republic of Congo and the UK”.
23. The second was that the Appellant had decided to withdraw her protection grounds of appeal. In a supplementary bundle served on 9 June 2026, the Appellant filed witness statements from herself and her children, in which she asserted that she now only wished to rely on Article 8 ECHR.
24. At the reconvened hearing we heard evidence from the Appellant, and her daughter C1. We heard submissions from the parties. We then retired to consider our decision. Having done so we found ourselves particularly exercised about the conclusive grounds decision and its reference to trafficking across three countries, including the UK. The letter communicating that decision was extremely brief, and offered no explanation for its decision. Here we had an Appellant whose credibility was being challenged on the basis that she was lying about how she came to be in the United Kingdom; even if the appeal were to be limited to Article 8 grounds, that was a matter that could still be relevant to our decision. Mindful that obfuscation about travel arrangements is a known hallmark of trafficking, we decided that we needed more information from the Competent Authority about why it reached the decision that it did. We therefore directed the parties to use their best endeavours to obtain a more detailed explanation from the Competent Authority.
25. That explanation came, by way of supplementary bundle, on 9 July 2026, along with an application from the Appellant’s representatives for permission to file written submissions on the new material. We granted permission and gave directions that both parties to respond in writing, with the Respondent’s reply to be filed by 4 September 2026. We now have those submissions, and have considered them alongside the evidence as a whole.
26. We have considered the Appellant’s application to withdraw her reliance on protection grounds in light of rule 17(2) of The Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008. We are satisfied that the Appellant has at all material times had access to legal advice about the consequences of such an application. Noting that the withdrawal causes no prejudice to the Respondent, we give consent.
27. That means that the only ground that remains for us to consider is whether the refusal of leave to the Appellant and her children would be unlawful under s6(1) Human Rights Act 1998, because it would amount to a disproportionate interference with their Article 8 rights.

The Evidence
28. The evidence relating to the Appellant’s background, and protection claim, are summarised above. These are relevant insofar as we must make a finding about her credibility in order to determine the likely circumstances that she and her children would face if returned to Congo Brazzaville.
29. It is not in dispute that the Appellant and the children have been in the United Kingdom since 10 August 2019. In respect of their circumstances since arrival we have been provided with a supplementary bundle containing witness statements from each member of the family.
30. The Appellant gave oral evidence with the assistance of a Lingala and French speaking interpreter appearing via video link. The Appellant told us that although she still considers herself to be in danger in Congo Brazzaville, she has withdrawn her protection grounds because she wants to focus on her children and their life in the UK going forward. She adopted her witness statement dated 2 June 2026. She explains therein that the children have both worked hard to build a life for themselves here, and have both excelled in their educations. C1 has obtained a scholarship for a prestigious university in Scotland to study Spanish, and C2 has just completed his National 5 exams. He plays football and attends church, where he was baptised. The Appellant says that she is taking English lessons and attends a women’s drop in group where she has made many friends. She and other women chat, have a coffee and sometimes do arts and crafts. There is also a foodbank there. She and the children attend church. The Appellant avers that she has not had any contact with any of her family since she left Congo-Brazzaville and she does not know what happened to her partner.
31. We then heard oral evidence from C1. C1 was born in May 2007 so at the date of the hearing before us she was 19 years old. She gave evidence in clear Scots-accented English. She adopted her witness statement dated 13 May 2026. She recalls that when she first arrived in the UK the family came straight up to Glasgow and it was so cold and raining. She couldn’t wait to start school but was also scared because she could only speak French at that time. When she started it was really hard but lots of the teachers really helped her and within two years she was fluent. She loved school, and her favourite subjects were in languages and arts - Modern Studies, French, Spanish, Religious Education, Morals and Philosophy, Drama. She thinks drama was particularly helpful to her in learning English. She writes:
“From the moment I learned English, I felt very Glaswegian because I learned most Glaswegian slang like “aye”, “naw”, “nae bother”, “manky”. My favourite slang word is “hee haw” because the very first time I heard it was in my modern studies class in S4, and my teacher… is very Glaswegian. I was daydreaming in class, and he told me that. I thought he was making horse noises, but “hee haw” means absolutely nothing. That was very funny. When I moved to Edinburgh, I just realised how Glaswegian I was, especially because I always say “aye” at the end of every sentence. And my first language is French, so it just makes my Glaswegian accent pop even more. I like Edinburgh, its very pretty”.
32. C1 undertook extensive voluntary activities at school. She volunteered twice a week as part of the Nurture Group, which required her to be a mentor to younger students. This meant lots of extra-curricular activities like horse-riding and golf, as well as civic engagements like being taken round Celtic Park and visiting a local police station where she thought it was “very cool” to see the cells. C1 made good friends through Nurture Group, including two girls who remain her best friends today. One of them is Scots-Congolese and they attend the same church. They were both baptised on the same day at a church in Glasgow. C1 also joined a programme run by the Social Mobility Foundation. Through this she went to London to do an internship at a major law firm. She has since also done work experience with a solicitors’ firm in Glasgow. C1 was designated a ‘young carer’ when she was at school, because of the help she needed to give her mum, translating and supporting her looking after her little brother. This group offered her support over her final three years at school.
33. C1 states that she is very proud of herself for securing her university scholarship. She had originally hoped to study law, but she didn’t get a place. When this opportunity came up it involved a lot of work, completing forms and preparing the application. When she started she found it quite stressful because of all the administrative formalities but now she loves it. In her first year she took an extra class in Chinese which she really enjoyed and she is now hoping to transfer to a joint honours degree in Chinese and Spanish next year.
34. C1 told us that she had not seen her father for a long time, she has had not contact with him since she was little. She has a good relationship with her mother. Now she is at university they text each other every morning, and she comes home during the holidays.
35. C1 does not want to go back to Congo-Brazzaville. She is worried that she wont know anything about that country anymore and that she will miss out on the education and prospects that she has secured for herself in Scotland. She would also miss little things like going to the chippie. She has become used to life here and considers herself to be Scottish. She writes:
“Taking it away from me would be heartbreaking because I worked so hard to get used to a new culture – it is never easy to adapt to a new country – and now that I have done it, taking it away from me would be like a slap in the face because I have always behaved, I have worked hard, I have never had issues in school, with people in the street, or with the police. I have all my friends, I have made new family members, like my high school teachers with whom I’m still in contact; they are my white aunties, and my friends are my sisters. In Scotland it rains a lot, but I like that; I enjoy the wind, I enjoy having conversations with strangers on the bus. There are so many things I enjoy in Scotland, taking it away would be unfair”.
36. We were provided with a letter from C1’s former secondary school in Glasgow. The writer, a leadership teacher, wrote that she “could be here all day“ listing the many and varied ways in which C1 excelled and contributed. She writes that she was an “exemplary student who coped remarkably well with a range of adversity to emerge as an incredibly successful learner and contributor within our school and wider community”. The writer reports that even now C1 continues to volunteer at the school as a mentor to younger children who have experienced challenges and trauma, assisted by her own sense of empathy and her “warm and energetic personality”.
37. C2 did not give evidence. He was 15 years old at the day of the hearing and Mr Mullen confirmed that he had no questions for him. He did give evidence by way of the Appellant’s representatives, who drafted a witness statement which he signed on 21 April 2026. C2 explains that he was only 9 when he arrived in Glasgow. He was however a good footballer and so quickly made friends by doing that. He spoke French when he arrived but learned English and has enjoyed school. He plays football and video games in his spare time. At the date of the hearing he was 15 and was taking his ‘National 5s’. He enjoys practical subjects the best and will next year be taking his Highers with a view to going to university. He would like to attend university in Glasgow and study engineering or business.

Discussion and Findings
38. At the date that the Appellant made the human rights applications on behalf of herself and her children, the paragraph of the rules applicable to Article 8 private life claims was paragraph 276ADE(1). That paragraph has now been deleted, and the claims now fall for consideration under the provisions in Appendix Private Life. Nothing turns on that, since the substantive requirements have remained the same. We start with those rules. They are an important part of our consideration because the rules reflect parliament’s view as to where the balance should be struck in respect of Article 8. If we find that the rules are met, the appeal will be allowed: TZ (Pakistan) and PG (India) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1109 applied.
39. We begin with the rules as they apply to C2. C2 arrived in the UK on 10 August 2019 and as we make our decision, he has spent a continuous period of 7 years and 1 month in the UK. He has just turned 16. He is therefore a ‘qualifying child’ as defined by s117D(1) Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Under the provisions of 276ADE(1)(vi), and PL 3.1, it remains for him to show, in order to quality for settlement, that it would “not be reasonable” to expect him to leave the UK.
40. The requirement of ‘reasonableness’ is one of the various formulations that the drafters of the rules, and indeed statute, have employed as an expression for ‘proportionality’. As the Supreme Court explains in KO (Nigeria) (FC) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] UKSC 53, those various formulations introduce progressively higher hurdles for applicants, depending on the context of their claims, and in order to better reflect where the public interest lies in refusing or granting leave to different classes of applicant. A serious criminal, for instance, is required to show that there are “very compelling” reasons not to remove him. A medium offender would have to demonstrate that the consequences of his removal would be “unduly harsh” for his family. Absent any criminality, a child like C2 is required to show that the refusal to grant leave would, in all the circumstances, be “not reasonable”. In KO the Court found that reasonableness is not to be evaluated with reference to the conduct of the child’s parents; that said, the immigration status of the parent/s will plainly be a relevant consideration, and it would normally be reasonable to expect a child to accompany his or her parents wherever they might live. It involves a global appraisal of all the relevant factors. One of those factors would be where C2’s best interests lie: s55 Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009.
41. The Secretary of State accepts that it would be in C2’s best interests to remain living with his mother. We agree. We further find that his best interests would be served by him being permitted to remain in the UK. We bear in mind that this will mean he does not return to the country of his birth and cultural heritage. He was however only 9 years old when he arrived here. He has adapted well to life in this country, and like his sister, is now fully integrated, and considers himself a Glaswegian. In Azimi-Moayed and others (decisions affecting children; onward appeals)[2013] UKUT 00197 (IAC), the then President Mr Justice Blake observed that the older children are, the more likely the period of long residence is to have played a significant role in the establishment of that child’s private life. That is because the private life of very young children is almost exclusively concerned with their parents, home and siblings. The private life of a 9-16 year old is, by contrast, about exploring the world outside: in C2’s case that has meant making friends, attending school and church, playing team sports, and thinking about his future. Seven years is a long time in the life of a young person, and that is the life he has become used to. We are satisfied that it would be strongly contrary to C2’s best interests to interfere with that stable and productive life, which he currently enjoys in the UK.
42. The other side of the coin is that C2 will have very few meaningful memories or understanding of life in Congo-Brazzaville. Although he is able to speak French, we are conscious that having left that country at such a young age, and having had no contact with anyone there since he left, he is likely to face significant challenges in re-integrating there. Here C2 has a clear plan ahead of him, including where he would like to go to university and what he would like to study. Going back to the country of his birth would likely mean a very different school system, and an uncertain path ahead. As the only ‘man’ in his family he would be expected, and perhaps expect of himself, that he should become in some way responsible for his mother and sister. We think it highly possible that he would end up leaving school in order to work. Even if he is able to continue to study, his education would certainly be significantly be disrupted.
43. We are mindful of what is said in KO to the effect that it will ordinarily be reasonable to expect a child to accompany a parent who has no leave to remain. Drawing all of that together we are however satisfied, in the particular circumstances of this case, that that presumption is here rebutted and it would not be reasonable to expect C2 to leave the UK today.
44. Section 117B(6) Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 reads:
(6) In the case of a person who is not liable to deportation, the public interest does not require the person's removal where—
(a) the person has a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with a qualifying child, and
(b) it would not be reasonable to expect the child to leave the United Kingdom.
45. Applying that provision, it follows that the Appellant must succeed in her appeal because it is uncontested that she has a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with C2, and we have found that it would not be reasonable to expect C2 to leave the UK.
46. That leaves C1. C1 no longer has the recourse to 276ADE(1)(iv) that her brother does, because she has attained adulthood. We are however mindful that she remains part of this family unit. Although she is now at university during term time, her home is still where her mother and brother live. She has achieved some measure of financial independence in winning her scholarship, but we are satisfied that there remains a significant degree of emotional and practical interdependence here. We accept, for instance, that she starts each day with a message to her mother, and that she continues to look to her for guidance in decision making. We accept that there is, for the purpose of Article 8, a family life between C1, her mother and brother.
47. We find that there would be an interference in that family life if C1 is not granted leave in line with her family members, since we are wholly satisfied that they would remain here to take advantage of their success in this appeal.
48. That leaves proportionality. The Secretary of State did not seek to persuade us that it would be reasonable, or proportionate, for C1 to go back to Congo-Brazzaville on her own, so our reasoning on this matter can be brief. Although there must remain some doubt about who or where her father is, we are satisfied on a balance of probabilities, having regard to the impressive reference from her school, and the generally credible manner in which she gave evidence, that C1 was telling the truth when she said that she has had no contact with him. She left Congo-Brazzaville as a child and although she speaks fluent French, will have little to no idea of how life works there, or how to establish herself. As a young woman without family members to look to for protection and guidance she would be vulnerable. All of that is to be contrasted with the success and life that she has built for herself here. We have of course had regard to the considerations listed at s117B Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. It is in the public interest that persons who do not otherwise qualify for leave to remain under the Rules are refused leave, and we also acknowledge that C1 is not yet entirely financially independent. That said, we note that neither s117B(4) or (5) apply here, because this is a decision that turns on her family life. C1 has shown herself to be an extremely productive, hardworking and impressive young woman and we find the public interest in her removal, in circumstances where her natal family are remaining here, to be decisively outweighed.
49. It follows that we are satisfied that the Appellant and her children should be granted leave to remain on human rights grounds and the appeal is therefore allowed.
50. As the reasoning above reveals, we have not found it necessary to stray into what might be termed the ‘residual’ protection element of this appeal. We do so here only in brief, and for the sake of completeness.
51. We have no hesitation at all in agreeing with Mr Mullen that the Appellant has plainly been untruthful about her journey to the UK. Her blanket denial of ever having been in Kenya is at odds with the photographic, documentary and fingerprint evidence which puts her in Nairobi in June 2019. Her hapless attempts to explain away the wildly discrepant evidence about the name of the children’s father compounded this dishonesty.
52. We do not, however, find that this undermines the conclusion of the Competent Authority that the Appellant has been a victim of trafficking. We have now had sight of the evidence that was before the Competent Authority. This includes the Appellant’s two lengthy asylum interviews as well as a detailed statement from her about her experiences in the DRC, and a letter from Freedom From Torture. Having had regard to all of that evidence, and to our finding that the Appellant has undoubtedly lied about her journey to the UK, we are satisfied that the core of her claim is true, and that at some point in 2018-2019, before making her way here, the Appellant was in fact trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
53. We so find because her evidence on this matter, given over multiple lengthy interviews, witness statements and during the Competent Authority investigation, has remained consistent at its core. The Appellant’s testimony to the Competent Authority, in her statement of 22 May 2025, is striking in its detail. Like the Appellant’s asylum interview, it contains minutiae which give the account the ‘ring of truth’, for instance the Big Boss instructing her to “shave everywhere” on her first night under his control. It is the kind of information one would only expect to see in the account of someone who is either recounting a real memory, or someone who is exceptionally good at telling stories. We already know, from the nonsensical explanations given by the Appellant about her partner’s name, that she is a terrible liar. We find the Appellant’s evidence about her experiences in the DRC to be in stark contrast to her evidence about her journey.
54. We have also read with care the letter from Freedom From Torture dated 22 May 2025 and obtained by the Appellant’s solicitors for submission to the Competent Authority. The letter confirms that the Appellant was referred to the organisation in September 2022 and entered their assessment process. The writer points out that as a charity with limited resources, they prioritise their services to ensure that treatment is only offered to cases where they believe that “an evidence-based treatment intervention will lead to an impact for that individual”. The Appellant entered treatment in December 2022 and had benefited from, by the date that the letter was written, 32 therapy sessions. We do not consider it necessary to set out all of the particulars of that letter here, since they are known to both parties, but the organisation confirms that over those sessions the Appellant received trauma-focused therapy helping her to address her depression, “guilt, shame and self-disgust”. Again, some of the details were telling: the therapist reports that when questioned about her lack of self-care the Appellant said she “found it hard to shower because she could not bear to see her nakedness”. We think it unlikely that an organisation such as this would expend its valuable resources on treating someone if they did not believe that they needed it. Nor do we think that the Appellant, faced by a professional with specialist training, would have been able to sustain such a fiction over so many hours, weeks and years. We find that the evidence of Freedom from Torture strongly supports the Appellant’s claim.
55. Whatever her reasons for obfuscating about her journey to the UK, we are entirely satisfied that at some point prior, the Appellant was trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. We believe her.

Decisions
56. The decision in the appeal is remade as follows: the appeal is remade on human rights grounds.
57. There is an order for anonymity because the Appellant is a victim of trafficking.

Upper Tribunal Judge Bruce
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
21 September 2026