Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-004113
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/57220/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 31 July 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LODATO

Between

BCC
(ANONYMITY ORDERED)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Unrepresented
For the Respondent: Ms Arif, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Edinburgh on 22 April 2026

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
Introduction and Background
1. I have decided to maintain the anonymity order originally made in these proceedings by the First-tier Tribunal (‘FTT’) because the underlying claim involves international protection issues in that the appellant claims to fear persecution or serious harm on return to Vietnam. In reaching this decision, I am mindful of the fundamental principle of open justice, but I am satisfied, taking the appellant’s case at its highest for these purposes, that the potential grave risks outweigh the rights of the public to know of his identity.
2. The appellant appeals with permission against the decision, dated 21 July 2025, of a judge of the First-tier Tribunal (‘the judge’) to dismiss the appeal on international protection and human rights grounds.
3. The appeal arose in the context of the appellant’s claim that he had been a victim of trafficking in Vietnam.
Appeal to the Upper Tribunal
4. The appellant applied for permission to appeal in reliance on the following grounds:
i. The judge was not clear in setting out the standard of proof which applied for the purposes of the asylum claim.
ii. The judge did not resolve important factual disputes between the parties about the events which were claimed by the appellant to have occurred before he left Vietnam.
iii. The judge did not resolve important factual disputes between the parties in relation to whether the appellant was a victim of trafficking in the UK.
5. Ground 4 is difficult to summarise. It was expressed in the following terms:
The FTT erred in law because its observations (paragraph 18) as to the applicability of the statutory provision referred to is unclear. If it is concluded that the NRM approach is correct (that the appellant was never forced to work outside Vietnam, then the FTT should have fortified its observation by concluding that his credibility had been undermined but it does not. That may be because it prefers – to a different standard – the decision of the respondent in the asylum decision viz that the appellant was forced to work abroad. The matter is unclear. The appellant should be accorded the benefit of the doubt.
6. In a decision dated 4 September 2025, a judge of the First-tier Tribunal granted permission for all grounds to be argued. The following observations were made in relation to ground 1:
[…] The Judge sets out the test to be met under the Refugee Convention at paragraph 3 and the burden of proof at paragraph 8. However, there is no reference to the standard of proof despite the reference at paragraph 21 to the different standard to be applied as compared to that of the Competent Authority. In the consideration of the evidence and submissions from paragraph 38 onwards, again the standard of proof is not referenced. The reference in paragraph 48 to it being “far more likely that the appellant is not sought by any traffickers” and at paragraph 45 that the evidence “tends to suggest that he was not in fact a victim of modern slavery” arguably suggests that the correct standard of proof has not been applied.
7. The appellant was unrepresented in the error of law proceedings and he did not attend the hearing. It was not the first time he had failed to attend an error of law hearing. On 29 January 2026, the appeal was listed to be heard by remote means at Field House in London. The judge who was due to hear the appeal was concerned that it appeared that an unsuccessful attempt appeared to have been made by an individual to join the remote hearing. In an effort to ensure that there were no similar technical difficulties on the next occasion, the judge directed that the matter should be listed on a face-to-face basis at the appellant’s closest hearing centre, Edinburgh. At the face-to-face hearing in Edinburgh, the appellant again failed to attend. In the absence of any telephone number or email address provided by the appellant, there was no means of contacting him on the day. I had no reason to think that the notice of hearing was not sent to his correct postal address. The respondent invited me to proceed in the appellant’s absence in the circumstances. I agreed and found this course to be in the interests of fairness and justice because all of the signals in the proceedings pointed in the direction of the appellant’s voluntarily disengagement from prosecuting his appeal. I heard oral submissions from the respondent who simply relied on the rule 24 notice which had been provided in compliance with previous directions.
Discussion
Ground 1
8. The notion that judge applied a higher standard of proof than a reasonable degree of likelihood, or real risk, is difficult to reconcile with a natural reading of [21] of the decision where it was decided to admit into evidence the negative decision of the single competent authority on the trafficking claim, which was determined on the balance of probabilities:
[21] On this preliminary matter I took the decision that it was entirely appropriate for the negative grounds decision to be lodged as one of the documents in the appeal, as there appeared to be no prejudice to the appellant since this matter had been intimated to his solicitors over a year ago. It is necessary for the Tribunal to have all the available relevant evidence, and this document is a relevant adminicle of evidence in the case. In any event there are different standards of proof for the single competent authority namely on a balance of probabilities compared to the standard of proof in this tribunal in a pre-NABA case which is that of real risk. Accordingly, I allowed the document to be received.
[Underlining added]
9. The correct standard and burden of proof was also set out in the judge’s self-direction on the law at [8]-[9].
10. The centrepiece of the complaint that the judge went on to misapply the correct standard is founded on [48]:
[48] Given that the appellant has given multiple versions of what he has supposedly done in the UK it is very difficult to know where the truth lies. I consider that in all the circumstances it is far more likely that the appellant is not sought by any traffickers. […]
11. I am not persuaded that the above remark made in the context of assessing the credibility of the appellant’s narrative account is demonstrative of a misdirection as to the applicable standard of proof. It is perhaps fair to say that the judge could have expressed herself with greater precision and avoided terms such as “far more likely” which might be confused by the reader for a balance of probabilities analysis but it does not come close to establishing that the judge lost sight of the accurate legal directions she previously set out in terms. Reading the decision fairly, the isolated remark that it was far more likely that the appellant was not sought by any traffickers does not necessarily, or by implication, exclude the same factual conclusion also being reached to a reasonable degree of likelihood.
Ground 2
12. Reading the overall decision holistically, benevolently and fairly, I am not satisfied that there is any material ambiguity about the judicial findings going to the events which were claimed to have unfolded in Vietnam. There is nothing to indicate that the judge rejected the appellant’s claim to have been a victim of trafficking before he left the country – paragraph [56] strongly suggests that at least some background of being trafficked was accepted by the judge when she found that he “may have been trafficked at one point”. However, the judge expressed the gravest of concerns about the remainder of his account noting the significantly divergent accounts he gave at [47] of the decision. The judge was more than entitled to draw on these concerns to reach the conclusion she did, at [49], that there was no reason to think that he continued to be of interest to traffickers upon being returned to Vietnam.
Ground 3
13. The judge’s analysis at [43]-[46] of her decision reveals a range of serious concerns about whether the appellant gave a truthful account about being trafficked once he had arrived in the UK. She was not required to set out in mechanical fashion that she rejected or accepted each individual factual component of his narrative. The broad thrust of the judge’s serious doubts in this regard is more than adequate in law to explain and contextualise why the ultimate decision was taken to reject his appeal on protection grounds.
Ground 4
14. As alluded to above, it was difficult to understand the nature of this challenge. It appears that the concern is directed to [18] of the judge’s decision:
Section 8, Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004
[18] The section is mandatory, and it relates to issues concerning the appellant’s credibility. The appellant arrived in the UK without using a passport. The appellant did not claim asylum on arrival and waited several years before making a claim. He travelled through various countries including Poland and France prior to arrival in the UK. This may be construed as not being the action of a genuine asylum seeker, and in the circumstances, such actions may be regarded as having seriously damaged the appellant’s credibility.
15. The judge was tolerably clear in her brief assessment that the appellant’s failure to make a timely protection claim in the UK and his failure to claim protection in safe European countries before he reached the UK undermined his credibility.
Conclusion
16. None of the grounds of appeal disclose errors of law. Accordingly, I dismiss the appeal. The decision of the FTT stands undisturbed.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the FTT did not involve errors of law. I dismiss the appeal.

P Lodato

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

27 April 2026