Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case Nos: UI-2025-003636

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/60778/2023
LP/13351/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 22 October 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KEBEDE

Between

HS
(Anonymity Order made)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr T Wilding, instructed by Farani Taylor Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms H Gilmour, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 8 October 2025

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant appeals, with permission, against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing her appeal against the respondent’s decision to refuse her asylum and human rights claim.

2. The appellant is a citizen of Pakistan born on 12 March 1977. She arrived in the UK on 23 August 2017, with a visit visa, and claimed asylum on 5 October 2017. Her claim was refused on 3 May 2019 and her appeal against that decision was dismissed on 24 June 2019. She became appeal rights exhausted on 29 August 2019. On 10 January 2020 the appellant made further submissions which were refused on 25 October 2021. On 24 April 2023 she made further submissions once again, which were refused on 3 November 2023, with an in-country right of appeal. The appellant appealed against that decision, and her appeal was dismissed on 20 June 2025. It is that appeal which is the subject of these proceedings.

3. The appellant’s original claim was that she feared persecution as a member of a particular social group. She claimed to be in fear of her husband and his family and claimed that if she went back to Pakistan he would arrange to have her killed. She also claimed to be in fear of her own family. The respondent did not accept the appellant’s claim to be a credible or plausible one and found that she was not at risk from her husband and his family, but that she could in any event seek state protection from the authorities in Pakistan or relocate to another part of the country.

4. In a decision dismissing the appellant’s appeal on 24 June 2019, the First-tier Tribunal Judge found that the appellant was not an honest witness and that she had invented her claim in order to be able to come and join her family (mother and brother) in the UK. The judge did not accept that the appellant had had a dispute with her husband and concluded that she could return to Kuwait, where she had lived for many years and where her husband was living, and that she could resume her married life there, or she could return to Pakistan. The judge did not accept that the appellant’s removal to Pakistan would put her at any risk, or that it would breach her human rights.

5. In her further submissions, which were dated 13 March 2023, the appellant’s claim was that she was at risk on return to Pakistan on the basis of her sexuality. It was claimed that she was ‘homosexual’ and that she had been aware of that since before her marriage, but that she married because of family pressure. She claimed that her husband had raped and violated her and that she managed to escape from him and come to the UK, and since coming to the UK had expressed her sexuality as a bisexual woman. She had been openly bisexual for five years and had had three serious relationships in the UK which had not lasted very long. She would not be able to live her life as a bisexual woman in Pakistan and would be at risk if she did so.

6. The appellant’s submissions were treated as a fresh claim, but were refused by the respondent in a decision of 3 November 2023. The respondent noted inconsistencies in the appellant’s account and did not accept that she was a bisexual woman. The respondent considered that the appellant would not be at any risk on return to Pakistan. The respondent noted the appellant’s claim to suffer from depression and stress but considered that there was treatment available to her in Pakistan and that her removal form the UK would not breach her human rights under Article 3 or 8.

7. In the respondent’s review prepared for the hearing of the appellant’s appeal against the refusal decision, the respondent accepted that if the appellant’s claim to be a bisexual woman was found to be credible and the appellant was found to be a credible witness, there would be a risk of persecution in Pakistan, but did not accept that her claim was credible. No weight was given to the evidence relied upon by the appellant in support of her claim.

8. The appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s refusal decision was heard by the First-tier Tribunal on 7 May 2025. The appellant gave oral evidence before the judge, as did two witnesses, Ms L and Mr S. The appellant produced a bundle of evidence for the hearing which included her own statement, a statement from her friend Ms L, entry tickets for LGBT events, photographs of herself at LGBT clubs, emails from the Peter Tatchell Foundation addressed to herself and background country evidence, as well as a supplementary bundle containing a letter from the LGBT+ Barking & Dagenham Adult Social Network, a letter from the Chief Executive of Redbridge Rainbow Community and a clinical psychologist report. The appellant’s evidence in her statement was that her family had come to know of her sexual orientation through a friend of her brother who saw her in a LGBT club and told her brother, and that her brother had threatened to cut her in pieces on her return to Pakistan. She claimed to have known that she was bisexual since the age of 14 years when she was at school and was attracted to a girl, and that she had had a relationship with a woman in the UK for almost a year. She claimed to be living an openly bisexual life and that she had joined LGBT communities such as Peter Tatchell and was a member of Disco Rani and attended LGBT clubs.

9. On the basis of the evidence before her confirming that the appellant suffered from PTSD and major depressive disorder, the judge made clear that she would take that into account when assessing her evidence. The judge did not, however, accept the appellant’s evidence as credible. She was not persuaded that the appellant was subjected to a controlling and abusive relationship with her second husband as claimed and did not accept her account of her sexuality as being a credible one. The judge did not find the appellant to be at risk on return to Pakistan. The judge, further, did not accept that the appellant’s removal to Pakistan would breach her Article 8 human rights, and she accordingly dismissed the appeal.

10. The appellant sought permission to appeal against the judge’s decision on six grounds: inadequate reasoning – cultural background assessment based on speculation; inadequate reasoning – domestic abuse and expectations of reporting; misunderstanding of sexual orientation and inadequate reasons; irrational/speculative reasoning on LGBT evidence; material misdirection – misapplication of Devaseelan; material misdirection – failure to consider evidence cumulatively.

11. Permission was granted on all grounds, as follows:

“3. The grounds of appeal, albeit relating to different aspects, challenge the content of and the accuracy of the reasoning provided by the Judge.

4. The grounds complain in relation to the background of the appellant and the assumptions made as to how she should behave and that the treatment of the LGBT issues were unfair and poorly and inadequately explained in relation to how the appellant should approach her sexuality or her life.

5. Having considered all of the grounds I am satisfied that they are all arguable. They are arguable for the reasons given in the application. The reasoning provided by the Judge may well have fall into error by failing to explain why a claimed lesbian ought to behave in a certain way or why someone from a strict background could not be permitted to go to school.”

12. The respondent did not produce a rule 24 response.

13. The matter then came before me for a hearing. Both parties made submissions.

14. Mr Wilding referred to the authorities bundle he had produced, and to the cases of MK (duty to give reasons) Pakistan [2013] UKUT 00641 and Simetra Global Assets Ltd & Anor v Ikon Finance Ltd & Ors [2019] EWCA Civ 1413 in relation to the duty to give reasons; ST (Corroboration, Kasolo) Ethiopia [2004] UKIAT 00119 and MAH (Egypt) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWCA Civ 216 in regard to the lack of requirement for corroborating evidence; and Y v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1223 in regard to the duty to take account of all the evidence, all of which laid down principles which he submitted the judge had failed to apply.

15. Mr Wilding then went through each of the grounds of appeal in making his submissions, asserting that the judge had failed to give reasons for rejecting the appellant’s account about her background and her narrative about her abusive second marriage, that the judge had imposed her own binary view of sexuality and had failed to take into account the overall evidence, that the judge had made perverse findings on the LGBT evidence, that the judge had misapplied the principles in Devaseelan by treating the previous asylum decision as determinative of the present claim, and that the judge had failed to consider the evidence cumulatively. Ms Gilmour responded to the grounds in her submissions, asserting that they were essentially a disagreement with the judge’s findings.

16. I shall address the submissions in more detail in my analysis which follows.

Analysis

17. The first ground of appeal is a challenge to the judge’s findings at [32] and [33]. It was Mr Wilding’s submission that the only reason given by the judge, at [32], for rejecting the appellant’s account about her family being a strict Muslim family, was that it was not credible that she would have been allowed to study and work if her family was so strict. Mr Wilding submitted that the judge was making assumptions based on her own views rather than considering the appellant’s own evidence, whereas there was nothing inherently implausible about her claim. However that is not a correct assessment of the judge’s reasoning at [32] and [33]. As Ms Gilmour properly submitted, the judge noted that the appellant’s account of coming from a strict family background had been rejected by the Tribunal in her previous appeal in 2019, and no further evidence or explanation had been provided for the current appeal, so that there was no reason for her to depart from those previous findings. The judge was accordingly entitled, and indeed obligated, to reject the appellant’s account in that regard and had no need to add any further reasoning. The judge went on, however, to give further reasons for rejecting the appellant’s account, based not only on the fact that her ability to work and study suggested some level of freedom in her family, but also on the fact that her separation and divorce from her first husband also suggested a level of freedom which was not consistent with such a strict background. All of those findings were fully and properly open to the judge and were, furthermore, consistent with a proper approach to the Devaseelan principles.

18. Mr Wilding submitted, in respect to ground two, that there was also inadequate reasoning by the judge in her rejection of the appellant’s account of the domestic abuse from her husband. He submitted that both reasons given by the judge, namely the appellant’s failure to take steps to seek protection from the authorities in Kuwait and a lack of corroborative evidence, were impermissible reasons for rejecting her account of the abuse. However, again, as with the assertions made in the first ground, Mr Wilding’s submission failed to take account of the fact that the previous Tribunal had considered and rejected the appellant’s account of her husband’s abuse and that the judge was therefore bound to follow the findings of the previous Tribunal, absent proper reasons to depart from it. At [35] to [36] the judge considered whether there were reasons to depart from the findings of the previous Tribunal, as she was required to do in accordance with the Devaseelan principles, but found that there were none. The judge’s reference to the lack of evidence of the claimed abuse such as photographs, medical reports or statements from family and friends, was not, as Mr Wilding asserted, a requirement for corroboration, but was rather a finding by the judge that there was no evidence before her permitting her to depart from the findings of the previous Tribunal. In any event, as Ms Gilmour properly submitted, the case of TK (Burundi) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] EWCA Civ 40 made it clear that the judge was entitled to draw adverse conclusions from a lack of evidence which would have been readily available and which could reasonably have been expected to be obtained and adduced. Accordingly the judge was perfectly entitled to reject the appellant’s account of having been subjected to a controlling and abusive relationship with her second husband. There was no absence of proper reasoning as the grounds assert.

19. The third ground asserts that the judge erred by finding there to be a contradiction in the appellant’s evidence as to her sexuality, having claimed to have had no interest in men but then describing herself as bisexual. Mr Wilding submitted that the judge had impermissibly fixed her finding of inconsistency on a label, and had imposed her own binary view of sexuality, rather than focussing on the evidence which supported the appellant’s account of her sexuality, namely the evidence of the two witnesses and the supporting documentary evidence. However, as Ms Gilmour properly submitted, the judge’s findings on the appellant’s sexuality went beyond her finding at [42] on the contradiction in her evidence, and consisted of a much wider consideration of the appellant’s claim which took account of all the evidence. At [43] to [49] the judge considered that the appellant’s delay in raising her sexuality as part of her claim undermined her credibility; at [50] to [53] the judge gave reasons for rejecting the appellant’s claim as to threats from her family arising out of her sexuality; at [54] to [58] the judge found the lack of supporting evidence in relation to her claimed relationships in the UK to be undermining of the credibility of her claim; and at [59] to [72] the judge considered the supporting evidence upon which the appellant relied and gave reasons for concluding that it carried little weight. The judge therefore did not confine her adverse conclusion to a binary consideration and to the appellant’s labelling of her sexuality, but rather reached her conclusion on the basis of an extensive assessment of all the evidence taken together.

20. With regard to the supporting documentary evidence, the appellant asserts in her fourth ground that the judge failed to give proper reasons for rejecting that evidence and reached a conclusion which verged on the perverse. Mr Wilding submitted that the judge’s findings at [69] and [70] about the photographs at LGBT events being staged, and about the appellant’s attendance at the events being cynical, were irrational. However I agree with Ms Gilmour that the grounds fall well short of the high threshold for a perversity or irrationality challenge. There was nothing irrational about the judge’s views on the documentary evidence. The judge gave reasons for making the findings that she did and there was nothing lacking in those reasons. I take, by way of example, the judge’s finding at [70] on the photograph at page 41 of the appellant’s bundle, showing the appellant standing beside Peter Tatchell and holding a placard in Russian. It was, in my view, entirely open to the judge to draw an adverse inference from the fact that the appellant had no idea what the sign said and to conclude that the appellant’s presence was not out of genuine support of the LGBT causes. The challenge in the grounds in this regard is simply a disagreement with the judge’s findings on the documentary evidence. Those findings were entirely open to the judge to make.

21. The fifth ground, asserting that the judge misapplied Devaseelan, is equally lacking in merit. It is not the case, as the grounds assert, that the judge took the findings of the previous judge as determinative of the present claim. Rather, the judge properly applied the principles in Devaseelan, having correctly directed herself on those principles at length at [25] to [27]. The judge continued to remind herself that the decision of the previous Tribunal was her starting point and she then went on to consider whether she was able to depart from those previous findings and why she was not able to do so. It was Mr Wilding’s submission that the judge impermissibly allowed the findings of the previous Tribunal into her assessment of the appellant’s fresh claim relating to her sexuality. However I consider his submission to be misconceived. There was nothing impermissible, or contrary to the principles in Devaseelan, in the judge taking into account the previous adverse findings on the appellant’s reliability as a witness of truth when assessing her current claim based on her sexuality. There was no requirement for her to ignore those previous findings because the sexuality issue was a fresh claim, but neither did the judge treat herself as bound by those adverse findings without more. On the contrary the judge went on to assess the appellant’s credibility on the basis of the evidence as a whole, as she was required to do.

22. That then leads into the final ground, where it is asserted that the judge failed to evaluate the cumulative effect of the evidence. Mr Wilding submitted that, because of her impermissible approach to the principles in Devaseelan, whereby she focussed on the adverse credibility findings previously made, the judge failed to step back and undertake a global assessment of the evidence and failed to explain why she rejected the fresh evidence relating to her sexuality. However I do not agree with that submission. It is not the case, as Mr Wilding suggested, that the judge rejected the support provide by the evidence of the witnesses and the documentary evidence simply because she did not find the appellant to be a credible witness. Rather, the judge gave full and cogent reasons, at [54] to [72], for not being able to accord much weight to the evidence. At [60] to [67] the judge addressed the evidence of the two witnesses. She made clear that she did not take issue with their credibility, but she went on to give cogent reasons why she nevertheless attributed only little weight to their evidence as support for her claimed sexuality, as she was perfectly entitled to do. It is clear from her detailed and lengthy consideration of the evidence that the judge’s findings and conclusions were reached upon an assessment of all the evidence as a whole, taken cumulatively, as she confirmed at [73]. I reject Mr Wilding’s assertions to the contrary.

23. For all these reasons I find that the grounds are simply not made out. I agree with Ms Gilmour that the grounds are essentially a disagreement with the judge’s decision. The judge’s decision is a careful and comprehensive one and is one which was fully and properly open to her on the evidence before her.

Notice of Decision

24. The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve a material error on a point of law requiring it to be set aside. The decision to dismiss the appeal stands.

Anonymity

The anonymity order previously made by the First-tier Tribunal is maintained.

Signed: S Kebede
Upper Tribunal Judge Kebede

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

8 October 2025