Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003273

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/000265/2024
PA/56013/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 6th January 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RUDDICK
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE WALSH

Between

RM
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr A Rehman, instructed by Lincolns Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr B Hulme, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 12 December 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 her. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The First-tier Tribunal made an anonymity order in this appeal because the appellant has made a claim for international protection. We consider it appropriate for that order to continue because the public interest in the UK’s compliance with its international obligations and in the confidentiality of the asylum system outweigh any identifiable public interest in the precise details of this appellant’s identity.
2. The appellant is a citizen of Pakistan who entered the UK on a student visa on 13 January 2018 and claimed asylum on 9 April 2019. Her ex-husband is also a citizen of Pakistan and entered the UK in March 2018 with a visa as her dependant. The couple have two children, who were born in the UK in March 2019 and December 2020. In September 2023, the appellant and her husband separated and he pronounced talaaq, with the effect that they are divorced under Islamic law.
3. The appellant says that her ex-husband is her cousin, and that theirs was an arranged marriage. Prior to her marriage, she had a relationship with another man, named Awais; she initially described that relationship as a friendship (albeit one of which her “very strict” father would not have approved) but later said that in fact they had been intimate. She said that after her marriage, Awais threatened to harm her and then, when he found out she had left for the UK, he disclosed intimate pictures of them together to her family and community. She says she is now at risk of “honour” killing from her father as a result. She also says that her ex-husband subjected her to domestic violence in the UK, which has led to police action being taken against him. This has led to two further threats to her on return to Pakistan: continuing domestic violence from her husband and retaliation from or rejection by both families for having brought criminal charges against her husband.
4. The respondent refused the appellant’s protection claim and the appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (“FTT”). The FTT accepted that her husband had subjected her to domestic violence in the UK and that he continued to be under police investigation for this. However, it rejected her account of having been engaged in an intimate relationship with Awais and having been threatened or rejected by her family for this reason. It also rejected her account of having been threatened by her ex-husband’s family because of the criminal charges against him in the UK. It found that if the appellant returned to Pakistan, she would have the full support of her family. There would be no further risk of domestic violence from her ex-husband, as they would not be returning together. As the appellant would not be at risk of harm on return and would have the full support and protection of her family, neither state protection nor internal relocation were considered.
The grounds of appeal
5. The appellant was granted permission to appeal on four grounds.
6. Ground One is that the FTT erred in finding that the appellant’s credibility had been damaged by her delay in claiming asylum between March 2018 (the point at which she said she realised that she could not return home) and 9 April 2019, because it failed to take into account various mitigating factors that helped explain the delay. The FTT had further erred by treating the adverse section 8 finding as decisive.
7. Ground Two was that the FTT’s rejection of her credibility was infected by two fundamental errors. First, the FTT had found the account implausible based on presuppositions about how the appellant, her father and members of her community would have behaved. These presuppositions had no basis in the evidence before the FTT but instead reflected the Judge’s “stereotypical assumptions about behaviour and culture”. Second, the FTT had erred by taking “judicial notice” of the fact that metadata available from WhatsApp would have been reasonably available to confirm aspects of the appellant’s account, and then by finding that her credibility was damaged by not providing this metadata. It was also asserted in more general terms that the FTT had applied too high a standard of proof.
8. Ground Three was that the FTT erred by failing to assess the risk to the appellant on return in light of the country guidance case of SM (lone women – ostracism) Pakistan CG UKUT 67 (IAC) and the country evidence before it. Here, it was argued that the FTT had “failed to assess whether any claimed family support would be practically and culturally reliable in light of her perceived dishonour and status as a single mother”, and had failed to engage with the guidance in SM or the respondent’s country evidence about the risk of harm to the appellant as a “lone woman without protection”.
9. Ground Four challenged the FTT’s failure to take into account the “complex medical needs” of the appellant’s older child, whom we call “C” for “child” for the purposes of our decision. He is described here as “autistic, non-verbal, and dependent on NHS specialist care.” The FTT is said to have erred by giving “no consideration […] to CPIN evidence confirming the limited availability of autism-related support or the financial inaccessibility of private treatment.” It was also repeated here that the FTT had erred by overlooking the difficulties the appellant would face in relocating within Pakistan, as a single mother with two children.
The hearing
10. At the hearing before us, all parties had sight of the appellant’s bundle of 350 pages, filed on 3 December 2025, the respondent’s Rule 24 response of 8 October 2025, and the respondent’s CPINs, Pakistan: Healthcare and medical treatment, Version 3.0 (July 2024) and Pakistan: Women fearing gender-based violence. The current version of the latter is Version 6.0, and was published in October 2025, which was after the FTT hearing in this appeal. For the purposes of our decision, we have disregarded it, and considered instead the version that was available at the date of the hearing, as discussed below.
11. We heard submissions from Mr Rehman and then from Mr Hulme. We have taken their submissions into account in making our decision, but we do not rehearse them here. We will refer in our discussion below to what we consider to be the material aspects of those submissions.
12. After a brief adjournment, we informed the parties that the appeal was allowed because we found that Ground Two was made out. We gave brief reasons for this conclusion, as well as for our decision that none of the other grounds were made out. We now set out our reasons in more detail below.
Discussion

13. When considering whether the FTT’s decision involved the making of a material error of law, we have reminded ourselves of the principles of appellate restraint set out in Ullah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 201 [26] and Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464 [2-4]. The most relevant principle here is that the FTT is a specialist fact-finding tribunal, and “judges sitting in the FTT must be taken to be aware of the relevant authorities and to be seeking to apply them”, unless it is “clear” that they have not done so: Ullah at [26(v)].
14. Having taken that principle into account, we nonetheless find that the FTT’s rejection of the appellant’s credibility was infected by two significant errors. The first was that it repeatedly rejected the appellant’s account as implausible based on its own preconceptions about the appellant’s culture and community, rather than on the evidence before it.
15. It was not in dispute that the appellant was from Lahore, where she had obtained a BSc Honours degree in Economics and then taken up employment outside the home. Her family had then sponsored her to pursue an MSc in Economics in the UK. The appellant also said that her father was a “priest” at the local mosque and also worked as a clerk in an office. Her brother worked as a clerk in the accounts department of WAPDA (the national Water and Power Development Authority) and she described him as “highly educated”. Her mother was a housewife, her older sister was married, and her younger sister was still in education.
16. In terms of her family’s religious beliefs and cultural practices, the appellant described her father as “quite strict” but she gave only one example of what this meant. She said that she had told Awais that she could not be friends with him because her father “didn’t believe in the friendship of boy[s] and girls”. In terms of attitudes within the appellant’s wider family, she said that she told Awais that she could not marry him because she was expected to enter into an arranged marriage, which she later did. She also said that her immediate family had cut off contact with her after the intimate pictures were disclosed, partly because her father told them to do so and partly because they think she is a “bad woman”.
17. In terms of her father’s role in the wider community, the appellant said that her father preached at the local mosque every Friday and it would have been “shameful for him in the community” if it had become known that his daughter had an illicit friendship with a young man. This was the reason she did not report Awais’ threats to the local police: “this would have brought great shame as my father is the Imam of the mosque.” Once the photos showing her intimate relationship with Awais were revealed to her family, her ex-husband’s family and “neighbours”, it was “very shameful for my father and lots of other family members, as my father is a Molvi [sic] (priest/Preacher) at a local mosque.”
18. On the basis of this evidence, the FTT made the following findings:
(i) “It was the appellant’s account that she is from a strict Muslim family and that her father was a mulvi (which I understand to be a person versed in Islamic teachings or a religious leader). I find it inconceivable that the Appellant would have befriended a young man in circumstance which she acknowledged would have greatly displeased her family, and which would have brought shame on the family.”: [62]
(ii) It was “unlikely in the extreme that anyone would have shared her number [with Awais] without her consent, particularly given that her father would have been known in the neighbourhood due to his status as a mulvi.”: [62]
(iii) It was “implausible that the Appellant conducted an intimate relationship with Awais over a period of approximately three years [… .] [G]iven her strict upbringing and family circumstances, [it was] highly unlikely that the appellant would have been able to do so.”: [63]
(iv) “Given the strictures under which [the appellant] would have been living at the time in light of her father’s status, there would have very little time indeed when she would not have been in the company of family members, outside of her University studies.”: [64]
19. However, as outlined above, the appellant did not say that her wider family, let alone her entire local community, shared all of her father’s “very strict” views, such as that boys and girls could not be friends while at university. She did not say anything about whether the extended family or the wider community feared her father or respected his authority. She said that he would experience “shame” in the community if his daughter were found to be acting contrary to what he preached at the mosque, but this is not the same as saying that everyone else in the community followed his teachings. There was therefore no direct basis in the evidence for the finding that it was “unlikely in the extreme” that anyone in her neighbourhood or her extended family would have shared her phone number because of her father’s “status”.
20. As Mr Hulme accepted, moreover, nowhere did the appellant say that she was not allowed to leave the home without being accompanied by a family member. Indeed, this would have been inconsistent with her account of Awais waiting for her outside university and following her on her way home. It would also be difficult to reconcile with her having taken up employment outside the home or with her family’s support for her to leave Pakistan to pursue a master’s degree in the UK.
21. It is trite that FTT judges are not required to set out every step in their reasoning or refer to all of the evidence they have considered. We have therefore carefully reviewed the rest of the evidence before the FTT, seeking to identify the basis of its very confident findings about the views of her extended family members, her father’s status in his community (both of which made it unlikely “in the extreme” that anyone would have shared her phone number) and the restrictions that must have been placed on her freedom of movement as the result of that status. The only country evidence before the FTT was the respondent’s CPIN, Pakistan: Women fearing gender-based violence, Version 5.0 (November 2022), which it referred to at [42]. This states at [5.2.8] that women in “cities such as Lahore […] often enjoy relative freedom” and expresses the respondent’s view that it may be easier for women to relocate internally and to pursue independent lives in Lahore ([2.6.2], [5.3.6], and [7.1.3])). “Patriarchal attitudes and cultural norms” are described as more prevalent in rural areas and “amongst lower and middle classes”: [2.4.2]; see also: [5.2.1]; [7.1.3]. There is nothing in this evidence that describes the status of mulvis in educated, middle class Lahori communities, or the conditions under which the women in their families live. Indeed, the word “mulvi” does not appear in the document.
22. We conclude that the FTT’s very strongly held views about the implausibility of anyone having shared the appellant’s phone number and about her having been able to spend time outside the home without being accompanied by a family member were based on the Judge’s personal understanding of what it meant to be a mulvi, to which it referred at the beginning of [62]. This was a clear legal error. As set out by Neuberger LJ in HK v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1037 and reiterated in KB & AH (credibility-structured approach) Pakistan [2017] UKUT 00491 (IAC) at [28]:
“29. Inherent probability, which may be helpful in many domestic cases, can be a dangerous, even a wholly inappropriate, factor to rely on in some asylum cases. Much of the evidence will be referable to societies with customs and circumstances which are very different from those of which the members of the fact-finding tribunal have any (even second-hand) experience.”
23. Keene LJ expressed the same point in Y v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1223:
“25. There seems to me to be very little dispute between the parties as to the legal principles applicable to the approach which an adjudicator, now known as an immigration judge, should adopt towards issues of credibility. The fundamental one is that he should be cautious before finding an account to be inherently incredible, because there is a considerable risk that he will be over influenced by his own views on what is or is not plausible, and those views will have inevitably been influenced by his own background in this country and by the customs and ways of our own society. It is therefore important that he should seek to view an appellant's account of events […] in the context of conditions in the country from which the appellant comes.”
24. The FTT did not fall into the specific error warned against in these cases, which was to presume that people in Lahore behaved the same way as people in London. But it fell it to a related error. This was to rely on its existing perception of what it means to be a mulvi or the daughter of one, rather than on any relevant evidence before it.
25. At the hearing before us, Mr Hulme accepted that there was no background material before the FTT that could have supported the findings about the appellant’s father’s status and the impact that would have on the behaviour of the appellant or members of their community. He submitted, however, that submissions had been made on this issue. We do not find, however, that it is in accordance with the principles set out above for the FTT to adopt unevidenced assertions about foreign cultures simply because they have been made in submissions.
26. Although this was not raised in the grounds of appeal, this error was repeated at [78] in the FTT’s consideration of whether the appellant’s ex-husband’s relatives in Pakistan would “harbour any ill-feeling towards her”. The FTT expresses the view that they would not because he, rather than she, pronounced talaaq. This, too, appears to be a supposition without any basis in the evidence. The claim that they would have pressured her to “drop the charges” of domestic violence against him is then dismissed because this “is to entirely miss the point how the police investigate crimes of domestic violence” in the UK, but the FTT did not set out the basis of its knowledge about this topic. Nor does it explain how appellant’s ex-husband’s family in Lahore would share that knowledge.
27. Turning to the second error identified at Ground Two, the FTT twice took judicial notice of the fact that WhatsApp metadata would have been reasonably available to provide confirmation of the appellant’s account. First, at [66], it drew an adverse credibility inference from the appellant’s failure to produce “the original Whatsapp data” that would have shown that her cousin had sent her a picture of her and Awais in March 2018 as she claimed. It explained in parentheses that it took “judicial note [sic] that it is possible to export conversations, including still and videographic images from a WhatsApp conversation into a document, and the metadata.” Then, at [76], the FTT found that the appellant had fabricated a message purporting to be from her brother, partly because “It would, as I have remarked earlier in relation to her cousin’s message, have been a simple task for the Appellant to export the WhatsApp conversation to a document and provide the meta data yet she has chosen not to do so.”
28. The FTT did not specify what WhatsApp “meta data” it knew would have been reasonably available to the appellant. It would from context appear to be data proving that the messages were sent from a specific person, whose genuine identity could the meta data could confirm, and from a particular place on a particular date. Following a discussion at the hearing before us, it was agreed that it is not a well-known or incontrovertible fact that this level of detail is readily exportable from WhatsApp. Indeed, in the reasons for refusal letter, the respondent “accepted that there are limitations in your ability to present message from WhatsApp as evidence.” We therefore find that the FTT erred by taking judicial notice of this.
29. For these reasons, Ground two is made out.
30. Ground 1, however, is not made out. The appellant asserts in her grounds that the FTT “failed to consider” four mitigating factors that helped explain her delay in claim:
“(a) Her subjection to coercive control and domestic abuse from early 2019;
“(b) Her lack of independent legal representations until April 2019;
“(c) Her later diagnosis of depression and history of trauma;
“(d) Her isolation as a recent migrant under a curtailed visa with dependent immigration status.”
31. However, as Mr Rehman ultimately accepted at the hearing, the FTT did consider all but the first of these factors at [58] and gave cogent reasons for finding that they did not explain the appellant’s delay in claim. With regard to the appellant’s immigration status, moreover, the appellant’s submission below was the opposite of the one that she now says was ignored. The submission below was that the appellant had not claimed asylum earlier because her status was continuing and she was not faced with an imminent risk of being returned to Pakistan (see: [49]) – an explanation that the FTT also carefully considered and gave cogent reasons for rejecting at [58].
32. The appellant is right to say that the FTT did not consider whether the delay in claim was explained by the appellant’s experience of domestic abuse. Having carefully considered the appellant’s second appeal statement, the skeleton argument below and the submissions recorded in the determination, however, we find that this argument was not made below. Because this submission was not made below, the FTT did not err in failing to consider it. See: Lata (FtT: principal controversial issues) [2023] UKUT 00163 (IAC).
33. For these reasons, we find that Ground One is not made out, and that there was no error in the FTT’s consideration of whether the appellant’s credibility was damaged by her delay in claim.
34. Mr Hulme urged us to find that the errors identified at Ground Two were not material. We acknowledge the FTT made other well-founded and well-reasoned adverse credibility findings, such as those based on the significant change in the appellant’s account of whether she had in fact been intimate with Awais and the timing of that change. However, it is trite that credibility must be assessed in the round, and we cannot say that without the two significant errors identified above – both of which were repeated several times - the decision would inevitably have been the same.
35. Ground Three could not have succeeded if the FTT’s adverse credibility findings had been sustainable. Given that the FTT had found that the appellant had not behaved “dishonourably” as she claimed and that she would have the full support of her family on return, there was no need to assess the risk to her as a disgraced, lone woman without family support or to consider the safety or reasonableness of internal relocation. However, given that the rejection of her underlying account must be set aside, the risk to her on return will inevitably need to be reassessed once new findings about that account have been made.
36. Finally, we do not find that Ground Four is made out. The evidence of the additional needs of the appellant’s older child was quite limited. It consisted primarily of a letter from the Specialist Community Health Services for Children and Young People section of the appellant’s local NHS trust, dated 16 February 2024. It reported that C had “significant delay in speech and language skills”, “impaired social interaction” and “autistic traits” and was awaiting the results of an ADOS [autism diagnostic observation schedule] assessment. He was attending primary school, where he was “settled and happy to go to school”. Observations from his school were also awaited. His mother’s “major concern” was that he frequently threw tantrums when he did not get his way; she thought this could be due to the history of domestic violence and his parents’ separation. He had no physical health problems. The course of action agreed was:
“1. [C] to continue with his supports in school.
“2. [C] to continue to follow the recommendations of the speech and language therapist.
“3. I would arrange a referral to the families together hub for parental skill training.
“4. [C]’s mother to chase for school observations with the school SENCO.
“5. [C]’s mother to liaise with the ADOS team about the appointment.
“6. Review [C] in 6 months and hopefully the ADOS will be completed by then.”
37. At [90], the FTT considered the contents of this letter and noted that C had been diagnosed as having autistic traits and behavioural difficulties, but that there was no evidence that his condition would deteriorate if he returned to Pakistan. It also noted that he attended a mainstream school and was otherwise in good health. These findings were clearly open to it on this evidence. If the FTT did not consider the evidence of the child’s “complex medical needs” and his dependence on “specialist NHS care”, this is because there was no such evidence. As to the lack of treatment and support for autism in Pakistan, Mr Reham asked for time to consider the relevant CPIN and then accepted that there was no evidence of this before the FTT.
38. Although there was no error in the FTT’s assessment of the children’s best interests, it is trite that these must be carefully identified and on the basis of up-to-date evidence. By the time this matter is reheard, at least a year is likely to have passed, and this is a considerable period in the life of young children. We also note that further evidence regarding C’s condition and support needs was already overdue in February 2024. In addition, we have set aside the FTT’s findings about the relationship between the appellant and her family in Pakistan, and the fresh findings that will need to be made on this issue are likely to be material to the children’s best interests and to the article 8 assessment more generally. We therefore set aside the FTT’s article 8 assessment as well.
39. There has been no challenge to the FTT’s findings at [71]-[73] that the appellant was subjected to domestic violence by her husband and that there was an ongoing police investigation of this at the date of the hearing. In accordance with the guidance in AB (preserved FtT findings; Wisniewski principles) Iraq [2020] UKUT 268 (IAC), those findings are preserved.
40. For the reasons set out above, the decision of the FTT is set aside with no findings preserved except as set out immediately above at [39] of this decision. Taking into account the guidance set out in Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC) and AEB v SSHD [2022] EWCA Civ 1512, as well as the Practice Statement of 11 June 2018, and we consider that remittal to the FTT is appropriate given the extensive fact-finding required.
Notice of decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal promulgated on 20 May 2025 is set aside and the appeal is remitted to the FTT for a fresh hearing on all issues, before any other judge.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

19 December 2025