Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003297

First-tier Tribunal No: EU/53074/2024
LE/05347/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 14 November 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MERRIGAN

Between

PERKINS NGOWARI GEORGE
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms N Nnamani, Counsel
For the Respondent: Ms N Kerr, Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 27 October 2025

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant is a national of Nigeria. She appeals the decision (“the decision”) of First-tier Tribunal Judge Richards-Clarke (“the judge”) dated 13 January 2025. The judge found that the appellant did not meet the requirements for indefinite or limited leave to remain under Appendix EU of the Immigration Rules. Specifically, the judge found that the respondent had discharged the burden of proof to establish that the marriage relied upon by the appellant is one of convenience, and therefore that the appellant is not a spouse or civil partner of a relevant EEA national.

2. The background may be set out briefly. The appellant was born on 15 September 1972. She arrived in the UK on a visitor visa in 2009. In her witness statement dated 18 June 2024, the appellant states that she met her husband, Joao Mario Neto Rebelo Ferreira, in December 2019; and that they had a customary proxy marriage in Nigeria on 29 December 2020. The appellant and the spouse were in the UK at the time of this marriage. The appellant states that she and her husband cohabited from the date of the marriage until January 2023. The judge accepted at [19] the appellant’s evidence that Mr Ferreira was violent towards her.

3. Mr Ferreira is Portuguese, and therefore an EEA, national. The appellant submitted her EU Settlement Scheme application based on her marriage on 6 May 2021. That application was refused by the respondent on the basis that the appellant had not met the residence requirements; and that the marriage was one of convenience. An administrative review decision dated 13 April 2024 also concluded that the marriage was one of convenience.

4. Permission to appeal the judge’s decision was refused by First-tier Tribunal Judge Buchanan on 10 April 2025. Judge Buchanan identified two grounds:

a. The judge had failed to give adequate reasons in his assessment of the evidence because he had not factored into that assessment that domestic violence may have contributed to the absence of evidence about periods of cohabitation.
b. Cohabitation is not a relevant test, or mandatory in an EEA marriage: an EEA marriage may be genuine even if the couple do not cohabit.

5. Judge Buchanan did not consider that either ground amounted to a material error if law. As to the first ground, Judge Buchanan considered that the judge was sufficiently clear that there was a lack of evidence demonstrating cohabitation notwithstanding domestic violence. As to the second ground, the judge had addressed the case that the appellant put to him. The evidence presented was that the appellant cohabited with Mr Ferreira; and in considering that evidence, the judge concluded it did not support the appellant’s argument.

6. Permission to appeal was subsequently granted on 20 August 2025 by Upper Tribunal Judge O’Callaghan on the following basis (essentially the first ground).

“I am only required to consider whether the appeal is arguable, and that hurdle is crossed because I consider there may be a tension, amounting to a material error, between finding that the marriage was one of convenience and the couple having been in a relationship where there was domestic abuse. The appellant should be mindful that the two findings are not necessarily mutually exclusive, with the focus in relation to a marriage of convenience being on the intention of the parties at the time the marriage was entered into: Rosa v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWCA Civ 14 at [41]. However, I conclude that it is arguable that judicial reasoning, in particular reliance upon a lack of evidence provided by the appellant’s spouse in circumstances where domestic violence was accepted, at §19, may establish a material error of law.”

7. Judge O’Callaghan did not expressly limit permission to the first ground, and I have permitted submissions that go beyond it; but the submissions I have heard have focussed on the first ground.

8. It is agreed between the parties that the crucial part of the decision in determining whether the ground succeeds is [19].

“Third, there is a lack of evidence that the appellant and her spouse were living together as a married couple. While I accept the appellant’s account of domestic abuse, that their relationship has broken down and that they separated in January 2023 this does not explain the lack of evidence from the appellant’s spouse and the lack of documentary evidence prior to this date. The majority of letters are in the sole name of the appellant and the letters in joint names relate to an iTalk telecom bill from January 2021 and a life insurance policy proposed on 30 April 2021 which had missed payments by 2 October 2021. The other documents in the sole name of the appellant’s spouse include the appellant’s spouse’s Portuguese citizen card, bank statement, phone bills, salvation army letters and supermarket club card documents. While these documents are to the same address for the appellant and her spouse, the appellant’s evidence was that she and her spouse lived, and she continues to live with others in a house share. The appellant does not bring forth utility bills, council tax bills, rent statement or a tenancy agreement. I find that the documents relied on fall short of demonstrating that the appellant and her spouse were cohabiting as husband and wife.”

9. Ms Nnamani relies upon the grounds before First-tier Tribunal Judge Buchanan. In doing so, she contends that it was unreasonable for the judge to find at [19] both that the appellant’s marriage had broken down and that she was a victim of domestic violence, at the same time as finding that this was a marriage of convenience. It is said that at a minimum, the judge’s reasoning for doing so is unclear. It is also said that the existence of domestic abuse would of itself have made it harder for the appellant to evidence the genuine nature of the relationship.

10. In response, Ms Kerr relies on the Rule 24 Response dated 2 October 2025. In summary, Ms Kerr submits that the judge is not bound by making a finding that domestic violence took place as alleged by the appellant to find that the marriage was genuine. The judge was clear in the decision’s findings from [13] to [20], and then in the conclusions at [21] to [23], as to why he found that the respondent had discharged the burden of proof required to find the marriage was one of convenience; and that these reasons are sufficiently cogent to male clear why the judge found a marriage of convenience at the same time as finding that the relationship was a violent one.

11. The critical sentence in [19] reads: “While I accept the appellant’s account of domestic abuse, that their relationship has broken down and that they separated in January 2023 this does not explain the lack of evidence from the appellant’s spouse and the lack of documentary evidence prior to this date”. Considering the evidence relied upon by the appellant, I read in the domestic abuse report prepared by IPC4SD dated 5 April 2024 that the appellant “reported that from July 2022 the situation at home started changing to worse than what she had tried to tolerate…She tolerated this situation for over six months keeping quiet because she feared escalation to physical abuse”. The judge without qualification accepted the appellant’s account of domestic abuse. But irrespective of the exact timeline and nature of the abuse regrettably suffered by the appellant, the judge was alive to the potential impact of domestic abuse on her ability to evidence her claim. The judge is amply clear at [17] to [20] as to the concerns which led him to find, on the balance of probabilities, that this was a marriage of convenience. It is equally clear that the judge factored in the presence of domestic abuse, and still found the appellant’s evidence wanting. The judge amplifies that he was alive to the evidential difficulties domestic abuse may pose to the appellant in evidencing her case at [20]: “Nevertheless, the evidence before me does not demonstrate a relationship between a married couple from the time of the marriage in 20209 to the application here in May 2021”. I respectfully agree with Upper Tribunal Judge O’Callaghan in his grant of permission that findings of a marriage of convenience and domestic abuse are not in themselves mutually exclusive. They are not mutually contradictory here. There is no error of law on this ground.

12. Nor there is no error of law in the second ground identified by First-tier Tribunal Judge Buchanan. In stating at [19]: “I find that the documents relied upon fall short of demonstrating that the appellant and her spouse were cohabiting as husband and wife”, the judge did not misdirect himself in law: he merely addressed the case as presented to him. The judge sets out fully at [17] to [20] his concerns with the appellant’s evidence that led him to find that this was a marriage of convenience; and at [15] the evidence that led to him so finding. These concerns are much wider than whether or not the parties cohabited. It is clear that the judge did not err in finding a marriage of convenience just because he did not find that the parties cohabited. The judge correctly cited Rosa v SSHD [2016] EWCA Civ 14 at [11]; and there is nothing in the decision to suggest that he departed from the correct approach as set out in Rosa v SSHD – to focus on the intention of the parties at the time the marriage was entered into – only instead to base his decision on whether the appellant cohabited.

13. In a point expanding on ground 2, Ms Nnamani further argues that the judge has fallen into error in that he seems to have considered the potential sources of evidence he lists at [19] and [20] to amount, in effect, to a test: and one that the appellant failed by not supplying such evidence. There is, says Ms Nnamani, no such test; and the judge’s approach has led him to expect more of the appellant than the law requires. [20] reads as follows.

“Fourth, there is a general lack of evidence about the relationship between the appellant and her souse. The appellant relies on a small number of photographs of her and her spouse. These are limited, duplicated in the hearing bundle, and appear to have been taken on around three occasions. The photographs are not date stamped and do not depict more than the appellant and her spouse in a photograph together. Further there is no evidence before me of any communication between the appellant and her spouse, for example in the form of telephone calls, WhatsApp messages or on social media. Nor is there any letter of support from the appellant’s spouse with the appellant’s application. I have taken into account the appellant’s account of domestic abuse and the breakdown of her marriage. Nevertheless, the evidence before me does not demonstrate a relationship as a married couple from the time of the marriage in December 2020 to the application here in May 2021.”

14. Again, I consider that the judge has dealt with the case presented to him, rather than falling into error. The judge has found that there is a “lack of evidence”; and gone on to explain what might have supplied that lack. This amounts to no more than making himself clear, by giving examples of what might adequately have evidenced the appellant’s case. The judge has not prescribed that such evidence needed to be provided. The examples he gives have certainly not led him into an error of law.

Notice of Decision
15. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error of law and stands.

D. Merrigan

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

10 November 2025