Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-003569
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/63656/2023
LP/07617/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 6th March 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANDES

Between

R H
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Mohzam, Counsel, instructed by CB Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr Lawson, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre on 2 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 the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant, a citizen of Iran of Kurdish ethnicity, appeals with the limited permission of the First-Tier Tribunal (ground 1 only) against a decision of a First-Tier Tribunal Judge (“the FTJ”) promulgated on 8 January 2025 dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s refusal of 21 November 2023 of the appellant’s international protection claim made on 3 May 2022.
Anonymity
2. I continue the anonymity order first made in the First-Tier Tribunal. I consider that the public interest in open justice is outweighed by the public interest in the integrity and confidentiality of the asylum process.
Background
3. It was the appellant’s case that he would be at risk on return to Iran because he had converted from Islam to Christianity. He had worked as a kolbar and had hired a truck and driver to carry 250 bibles from Iraq, but the truck was stopped by the authorities, and the driver informed the authorities about the appellant, and the appellant ran away before he could be caught. The appellant said that he had been introduced to Christianity in Iran 5 or 6 months before he left Iran; he had prayed at home and read the Bible but did not attend church services as he was afraid. The appellant said in evidence at the hearing that he was a Christian upon first arrival in the UK. He was baptised in the UK on 17 March 2024. A witness, a trustee of the Christadelphian Church the appellant attended came to the tribunal to give evidence on the appellant’s behalf. He had earlier produced two letters, one of 12 May 2024 which was in the evidence bundle and one of 3 October 2024 which the FTJ admitted despite its lateness.
4. The FTJ found that the appellant had not been truthful about the core of his account and found that it was a fabrication in its entirety.
The grounds and the response to the grounds
5. Permission was only granted on the first ground namely that the FTJ gave inadequate reasons. It is said the reasoning is either not explained or does not refer to material matters.
6. [20 a] – the FTJ had found the vagueness and inconsistencies identified by the respondent in the decision letter to be well-founded and cogent criticisms and the explanations given by the appellant in his statement and oral evidence not to come close to satisfying him otherwise. However, the appellant had addressed the respondent’s concerns and on a fair reading of the statement the responses cannot be said to be unfounded and the decision of the FTJ did not explain what the failings were which rendered the explanation unbelievable. The appellant was entitled to know why his explanation was not accepted. Mr Mohzam added that the FTJ had not given any consideration at all to the points in the refusal letter.
7. At [20 b] the FTJ had found it telling that the appellant failed entirely in screening interview to mention his Christian faith or the adverse attention experienced due to the transportation of Bibles and he did not accept the explanation given, namely stress and/or interpreter difficulties. It is averred that the appellant’s explanations are indeed plausible and it is significant that the appellant had omitted the word “Bibles” rather than making any inconsistency, so that the core of his account is unchanged if that word is inserted. The appellant was not asked why the security services had taken an adverse interest in his truck, he was not legally represented at the time, the screening interview was not recorded and there was no indication that it was read back to him and so the first opportunity the appellant had to raise the information was when his representatives contacted the Home Office and then the information was provided.
8. Mr Mohzam added that when one considered KD (Sri Lanka) [2007] EWCA Civ 1384 one had to take account of how the interview was conducted. There was no recording of a screening interview and quite clearly there could be misunderstandings. The appellant said he was distressed from his experience of the journey, and he feared for his wife and children. It seemed he may not have understood full what was happening and what was being said. Once he was represented, he set out his case in the preliminary information questionnaire, and his evidence was that on arrival in the UK he was attending church. The FTJ should have considered whether there were reasons for the shortcomings, and the omission should not have damaged the appellant’s credibility. The case of YL (Rely on SEF) China [2004] UKIAT 00145 explained that a screening interview was not done to establish in detail the reasons a person gave to support their claim for asylum; there might be an inaccurate summary by an interviewing officer which would be excusable at that stage and the asylum seeker may be tired after a long journey – those matters had to be considered when any inconsistencies between the screening interview and a later case were evaluated.
9. So far as [20 (c)] was concerned and the evidence about church attendance the grounds averred that the FTJ did not articulate why the appellant’s explanation for the gap in church attendance was not accepted and what was unbelievable about the disruption of disbursement and shared asylum accommodation which would prevent the appellant from establishing links in the area. Nor was it explained why the evidence of the church witness did not assist as it was independent witness testimony of a sustained period of Christian activity and an independent view of the genuine nature of the appellant’s beliefs. The FTJ did not say why the evidence carried no weight and was said simply to bolster a claim. The conclusion was reached without a full and holistic assessment of the evidence. Mr Mohzam added that the FTJ used the phrase “I do not consider the evidence from (the church witness) to sufficiently assist…”it was not clear what that meant.
10. There was no rule 24 response. Mr Lawson submitted at the hearing that the appellant claiming that he misunderstood at screening interview and thought they were asking him about his past religion was tenuous. The appellant at no point in his screening interview raised a risk due to his religion and made no expression of any adverse interest in him due to his religion. The FTJ had explained why he did not accept the appellant’s explanation about not mentioning anything about the matter in screening interview.
11. Mr Lawson submitted that when considering how the FTJ had dealt with the evidence of the church witness, I should consider the Senior President’s Practice Direction which asked for brevity in the way decisions were constructed. He took me through paragraphs 5 to 8 of that Practice Direction and submitted that focussed on the need for brevity, and the absence of the need to express every step in reasoning. The FTJ had simply chosen to reject the evidence of the church witness when balanced against the other evidence of the appellant’s claimed Christianity. The FTJ was saying that he had considered the appellant’s explanations in his witness statement for why he had not attended church regularly until December 2023 and that did not come close to satisfying him. The FTJ used the words “sufficiently assist” but he had carried out a balancing exercise. He had considered the evidence in the round, and the grounds were essentially a disagreement with the FTJ’s properly reached conclusions.
12. Mr Mohzam referred me to MK (duty to give reasons) Pakistan [2013] UKUT 641 and to the headnote which said that if a tribunal found oral evidence to be implausible, incredible or unreliable or a document to be worth no weight whatsoever, it was necessary to say so in the decision and for findings to be supported by reasons. It was not clear at all what “I do not consider the evidence … to sufficiently assist” meant. It did not explain what the evidence was or why the appellant would be baptised if the church did not think he was a genuine Christian, why would they have selected him for baptism. The same problem occurred with paragraph [20 [a]] there were simply no reasons given – the FTJ did not explain why he was not satisfied by the explanation. Mr Mohzam concluded that the FTJ’s mind was already made up before he evaluated the evidence. He had not given sufficient reasons for rejecting any of the evidence.
Discussion; conclusions
13. The gist of the grounds is that the reasons why the FTJ preferred the respondent’s case are not apparent.
14. I was referred to the Practice Direction from the Senior President of Tribunals: Reasons for decisions and I consider it to be helpful to quote from that Practice Direction (without the footnotes which reference case-law):
“5. Where reasons are given, they must always be adequate, clear, appropriately concise, and focused upon the principal controversial issues on which the outcome of the case has turned. To be adequate, the reasons for a judicial decision must explain to the parties why they have won and lost. The reasons must enable the reader to understand why the matter was decided as it was and what conclusions were reached on the main issues in dispute. They must always enable an appellate body to understand why the decision was reached, so that it is able to assess whether the decision involved the making of an error on a point of law. These fundamental principles apply to the tribunals as well as to the courts.
6. Providing adequate reasons does not usually require the First-tier Tribunal to identify all of the evidence relied upon in reaching its findings of fact, to elaborate at length its conclusions on any issue of law, or to express every step of its reasoning. The reasons provided for any decision should be proportionate, not only to the resources of the Tribunal, but to the significance and complexity of the issues that have to be decided. Reasons need refer only to the main issues and evidence in dispute, and explain how those issues essential to the Tribunal’s conclusion have been resolved….
…
8. Judges and members in the First-tier Tribunal should expect that the Upper Tribunal will approach its own decisions on appeal in accordance with the well settled principle that appellate tribunals exercise appropriate restraint when considering a challenge to a decision based on the adequacy of reasons. As the Court of Appeal has emphasised, a realistic and reasonably benevolent approach will be taken such that decisions under appeal will be read fairly and not hypercritically.
9. … The Upper Tribunal will not readily assume that a tribunal has misdirected itself merely because every step in its reasoning is not fully set out in its decision. Thus, a challenge based on the adequacy of reasons should only succeed when the appellate body cannot understand the Tribunal’s thought process in making material findings.”
15. I turn to the FTJ’s decision with those principles in mind.
16. It is right that [20 [a]] is a peculiar paragraph. The way the sub-paragraphs of [20] are structured, they read as if the FTJ was intending to note the main points of concern with the appellant’s evidence. If one reads [20 [a]] on its face, it does not explain why the FTJ is not satisfied by the explanations in the appellant’s statement. I consider the clue to the paragraph is in the last sentence “I am not persuaded that the appellant has genuinely converted from Islam to Christianity or that the authorities were interested in him prior to departure for the reasons claimed.” That was obviously not the main point of concern; it was the conclusion. This is a clue that [20] is simply poorly structured.
17. When one reads the reasons given in the decision letter as to the inconsistencies referred to by the respondent with respect to claimed conversion to Christianity and adverse attention in Iran, the FTJ gives at [20 [b]] and [20 [c]] the reasons why he is not satisfied by the appellant’s explanations on many of the points of inconsistency raised by the respondent.
18. The respondent refers in the decision letter firstly to the inconsistencies with screening interview, relying on the case-law of YL (China) and KD (Sri Lanka) and that it is expected that a person would be able to provide a generally consistent account of the core elements of their protection claim. The respondent refers to the appellant not mentioning his Christian faith in interview or any associated fears, indeed explicitly stating that he was Muslim and not mentioning that he was transporting Bibles and not mentioning that the authorities found religious materials at his home and suspected him of evangelism.
19. The FTJ dealt with these specific inconsistencies at [20 [b]], considering the appellant’s explanations for them. The grounds say the FTJ’s reasoning is problematic in this respect but the grounds at this point are mere argument. There is a clear reason why the FTJ did not accept the appellant’s explanation based on stress and interpreter difficulties namely that the appellant was able to answer the questions adequately and showed sufficient understanding and did not take any material action in relation to the alleged shortcomings. The appellant simply did not mention the real basis of his claim at all in screening interview. The FTJ was entitled to place weight on this absence (see [8] of KD (Sri Lanka)).
20. The respondent raised another inconsistency about the screening interview namely that the appellant claimed to have fled from his house when security forces arrived and that he had to leave everything, which it is said was inconsistent with later claims that the appellant was not at home during the raid but was in another town. The FTJ does not deal with this other than by the generic statement at the beginning of [20 (a)] that the vagueness and inconsistencies identified by the respondent in the decision are well-founded criticisms and the explanations do not come close to satisfying him otherwise. The question is whether this generic statement is sufficient. The appellant was asked in screening interview why he came to the UK and he said he was working as a kolbar and his truck was caught by the security forces and the authorities were informed it was his truck. “The security forces came to my house, I fled from the house, so I had to leave everything and fled.” The appellant explains in his witness statement that he was in another town when his home was raided and he never returned home once the authorities were looking for him. It is not obvious why the appellant’s explanation of stress and/or interpreter difficulties should be rejected on this point. The appellant is giving a very brief explanation and bearing in mind he was giving that explanation through an interpreter and was not asked further questions it does not automatically follow that he must have meant in screening interview that he was in the house or the vicinity of the house at the time the security forces arrived.
21. The next point mentioned by the respondent in the decision letter is that the appellant had failed to provide documentary evidence to confirm his participation in church classes and was unable to provide a specific full name for the church only referring to it as Christadelphian. The respondent said that the letter the appellant had submitted, although it was dated 31 August 2023, only confirmed that he attended the church briefly in May and June 2022 and provided no other information of any UK-based activities so the respondent considered that the appellant’s failure to provide reliable evidence of claimed religious activities had damaged his credibility. The FTJ considered the letter from the church and explained at [20 [c]] why it did not assist the appellant.
22. There are two further points mentioned in the decision letter which the appellant deals with in his witness statement. The first is that the respondent considered it cast further doubt on the veracity of the appellant’s claim that it was unclear how the appellant could obtain copies of his birth certificate and ID card if the authorities had taken the documents during their raid. The appellant explained in his witness statement that he had always had saved copies of those documents in his mobile phone, and he brought that phone to the UK. The FTJ does not refer to the appellant’s explanation on this point at all. It is not obviously implausible.
23. The last of the bullet points taken by the respondent against the appellant’s credibility is that the respondent considers it unclear why the appellant was unaware if there was an arrest warrant out for him as the appellant was in contact with family members who had informed him that the authorities were still interested in him. The appellant does not deal with this point directly in his witness statement but explains that he is not sure if an arrest warrant was issued against him, but knows there was a further raid on his home. Again, the FTJ does not mention this point or the appellant’s explanation.
24. It is a fair criticism therefore that the first part of [20 [a]] is not fully reasoned. The FTJ says “I have considered the vagueness and inconsistencies identified by the respondent in the decision with respect to claimed conversion to Christianity and adverse attention in Iran, which I have found to be well-founded and cogent criticisms. The explanations in the statement do not come close to satisfying me otherwise, even to the lower standard.” The phrasing suggests that the FTJ finds all the points identified by the respondent to be good ones, and the explanations do not come close to satisfying him on any of the points, but the FTJ has simply not analysed the appellant’s explanation at all on three of the points and it cannot be said that the explanations, in particular as to why the appellant had copy documents on his mobile phone, were so obviously bad that they needed no explanation.
25. Following the Senior President’s Practice Direction, I cannot understand the FTJ’s thought process in coming to conclusions on those three points. It is also not clear to me why the FTJ described the appellant’s oral evidence as suffering from similar failings or indeed whether he meant that it was vague and inconsistent or that he did not come close to being satisfied by the appellant’s oral evidence or both. The FTJ only refers to two aspects of the appellant’s evidence namely that he was a Christian upon first arrival [20 [b]] and that he did not attend any church during the gap between attendance at church in Ashby and in Nottingham. It is right that the appellant being a Christian on first arrival in the UK is inconsistent with his referring to himself as a Muslim in screening interview (and of course the FTJ rejects the explanation given by the appellant in his witness statement for problems at screening interview [20 [b]]) but the FTJ’s broad conclusion suggests that there was something more to the difficulties with the appellant’s oral evidence. I do not know what that was. I consider those are errors, but I can only see if they are material after determining whether there are any other errors.
26. I consider that the FTJ was perfectly entitled not to accept the appellant’s evidence in his witness statement that the gap in church attendance was accounted for by issues with a housemate and movement between Manchester. The FTJ did not need to give any further explanation. The appellant says in his witness statement that he did not attend church for about 5-6 months, because of the issues with the roommate, but the gap in attendance, according to the letter from the church witness, is from September 2022 to December 2023.
27. I do find however that it is unclear what the FTJ meant by saying that he did not consider the evidence from the church witness to sufficiently assist. I appreciate Mr Lawson’s point that what the FTJ was doing was rejecting the evidence of the witness having balanced it against the other evidence of the appellant’s claimed Christianity which he had found to be incredible and rejecting that evidence, but although that submission at first appeared attractive, ultimately I have concluded that rather more is required to work out what the FTJ meant.
28. I say that because the evidence of the church witness was very important for the appellant. The letters explain that it was he who had interviewed the appellant and that after that interview the appellant had been put forward for baptism, and that it was the witness’ opinion that the appellant’s fellowship at the church and his faith was very important to the appellant and that the appellant played a full role in church.
29. As I have set out above that evidence was more than the appellant attending church regularly and having been baptised, it was also the witness’ positive opinion of the appellant’s genuine faith.
30. Mr Lawson submitted that the FTJ rejected the witness evidence, but it is not clear that he did, in the sense of giving it little weight. He may have done. I suspect it is unlikely that the FTJ thought that the witness was not doing his best to tell the truth as he saw it, but the FTJ may have concluded, having heard the witness be cross-examined, that (for example) the witness despite interviewing the appellant for baptism, had simply accepted what the appellant said without questioning it, had barely spoken to him and had little direct knowledge of his activities. In other words, the FTJ may have concluded that he could not give the opinions of the witness much weight.
31. Alternatively, the FTJ may have concluded (for example) that the witness spoke often to the appellant, had thought carefully before putting him forward for baptism, had explained very well and with what on the face of it was good evidence why he thought the appellant’s faith was important to him, but the witness had been deceived by the appellant. In other words, the FTJ gave the opinions of the witness weight, but the appellant’s claim still failed. Or there may have been a middle ground.
32. However, the assessment of the weight which in principle could be given to the evidence of the church witness was important. Mr Lawson describes the exercise as a balance, but it is trite that before a balance can be taken the weight of the various pieces of evidence must be assessed. If the opinions of the church witness could not be given much weight, then they added little positive to the assessment of the appellant’s credibility. If his opinions could be given substantial weight because they were on the face of it soundly backed, then they potentially added a great deal which was positive to the assessment of the appellant’s credibility and the FTJ would then have fallen into the Mibanga error if he had not looked at the evidence in the round and taken the witness’ positive assessment of the appellant into that mix, as opposed to starting from the point that the appellant’s credibility was fatally damaged.
33. In short, if “I do not consider the evidence from (the church witness) to sufficiently assist” meant that it had not assisted the FTJ, that suggested the FTJ was placing little weight on the evidence and the appellant was entitled to know why, if only briefly. If “I do not consider the evidence from (the church witness) to sufficiently assist” meant to sufficiently assist the appellant, then the appellant was entitled to ask “why not” because the evidence of the church witness was about more than simple attendance at church and baptism. That attendance at the church and baptism was simply to bolster the appellant’s claim reads as if the FTJ was starting from the position that the appellant was someone who could not be believed and asking himself if the evidence of the church witness would lead him to depart from the conclusions to which he would otherwise have come, rather than looking at the evidence in the round. I note that the structure of [20] reads as if the FTJ was setting out in the sub-paragraphs the main points of concern with the appellant’s evidence yet the evidence from the church witness comes within a subparagraph of one of those points of concern.
34. I have considered the terms of the Senior President’s Practice Direction with care and that reasons need only be expressed briefly, but I consider that not only is there a gap in reasoning as I have explained at [25] but also because as I have explained at some detail immediately above, I cannot tell what the FTJ made of the evidence from the church witness and whichever way I read the phrase in italics I consider it is inadequate reasoning. A decision should be brief, but instead of setting out in a short paragraph the themes of the cross-examination of the church witness, the FTJ could have set out in a similarly short paragraph in the findings and reason section what weight he gave to the witness evidence and why based on the evidence the witness had given, and then fed that conclusion (if he gave that evidence some weight) into his overall assessment of the credibility of the appellant’s conversion taking the evidence in the round.
35. Taking the errors together I consider they are material ones and the decision must be set aside. Although there were significant inconsistencies in the appellant’s evidence, I cannot say that it is clear that any rational tribunal must have come to the same conclusion. I simply do not know absent any analysis of the evidence of the church witness and the weight to be given to that evidence. It was agreed that if I found material errors then the appeal would have to be remitted to the First-Tier Tribunal. No findings can be preserved.
Notice of Decision
The judge’s decision contains material errors of law and is set aside with no findings preserved.
The appeal is remitted to the First-Tier Tribunal at Birmingham/Nottingham to be reheard by another judge.

A-R Landes

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

1 March 2026