Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-004174
First Tier Number: (PA/59752/2024)
LP/00064/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 4th of December 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BRUCE

Between

SM (NIGERIA)
(anonymity order made)
Appellant
And

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Ajala, Almond Legals
For the Respondent: Ms Kerr, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 6 November 2025

Anonymity

Unless and until a tribunal or court directs otherwise, the appellant is granted anonymity. No report of these proceedings shall directly or indirectly identify her or any member of her family. This direction applies both to the appellant and to the respondent. Failure to comply with this direction could lead to contempt of court proceedings.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The Appellant is a national of Nigeria born in 1980. She appeals with permission against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal to dismiss her appeal on protection and human rights grounds.

2. The basis of the Appellants claim is that there is a real risk that she will be persecuted if returned to Nigeria for reasons of her membership of a particular social group, viz gay women. The Appellant asserted that she had a relationship with another girl when she was at school in Nigeria and that her parents and school discovered this and punished her. She asserts that she was forced into marriage with a man and whilst in Nigeria had to conceal her sexual orientation for fear of persecution. The Appellant claims to have had two relationships with women whilst she has been living in the UK and that she lives openly here as a gay woman.

3. The primary matter in issue before the First-tier Tribunal was whether these claims were true.

4. The First-tier Tribunal accepted some of the Appellant’s evidence. In particular it was prepared to accept that whilst at school she had “an incident” in the shower with another girl which resulted in her being punished by the school and beaten by her parents. The Tribunal did not however accept that the Appellant today identifies as a gay woman. Its principle concern was the lack of evidence. The Appellant had claimed to be a member of an organisation called Croydon Area Gay Association and that she attends 80% of their events, but there was little evidence to corroborate this claim. The group had supplied a letter confirming that she had joined, and the Appellant stated that she had attended a Pride march with fellow members; she had produced photographs from this event but had been unable to name any of the people she was pictured posing with. The Appellant claimed have been in a romantic relationship with a woman S, but there was limited evidence to show that this had been the case. Her current claimed partner, C, attended court and was cross examined. The Tribunal found there to be “serious discrepancies” between her evidence and that of the Appellant. The Appellant said that her son had not yet met any of C’s three children because C did not want her children to be involved. C, however, said that her children had all met the Appellant’s son. The Tribunal considered, and discounted, the possibility that the Appellant had forgotten that the children had met. The decision also focused on the lack of documentary evidence that the pair were together: there was in particular a lack of photographs. Several of those produced all appear to have been taken at the same occasion. Again, the women gave different explanations as to why that was. C said that they did take pictures, they had just not supplied any more; the Appellant said that they do not take photographs at all. There was further a lack of supporting evidence from the Appellant’s son, who could have testified to his mother’s relationships with both S and now C.

5. Turning to the Appellant’s assertion that she faces a risk of harm in Nigeria at the hands of her violent ex-husband. It had been her evidence that in the 19 years of their marriage he had kept her locked in a compound and she was never allowed to leave. The Tribunal described this as “completely implausible” in light of the remaining evidence that it was in fact the Appellant’s husband who had approved and funded her trip to the UK. If the Appellant wished to avoid her ex-husband she could do so by moving to a different part of Nigeria.

Error of Law: Discussion and Findings

6. The Appellant was granted permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal on 8 September 2025. Two aspects of the First-tier Tribunal are subject to challenge.

7. I deal with the second ground first, because it can be disposed of shortly. The Appellant asserts that an important part of her case before the First-tier Tribunal was not dealt with by the Tribunal. That was her assertion that even if her claim was rejected for a want of credibility, there was still a ‘bad faith’ claim in that the Appellant may face a real risk of serious harm from actors in Nigeria – in particular her ex-husband - because she has claimed asylum saying that she is a gay woman. This is unarguable. First of all it is not apparent to me that this was in fact argued before the First-tier Tribunal. Second there is no sensible suggestion that the Appellant’s ex-husband, or anyone else, would possibly know that she had made this claim. Mr Ajala pointed to the photographs showing the Appellant taking part in a Pride march, but was unable to explain how these might have come to anyone’s attention in Nigeria.

8. Returning to ground 1, this concerns the Tribunal’s treatment of the Appellant’s credibility as a witness. This ground encompasses several points, and I take each in turn:

i) The first is that the Tribunal failed to follow the guidance in Karanakaran [(2000) Imm AR 271 by taking into account all evidence and coming to a clear conclusion on each material fact.

I do not agree. It appears to me that the First-tier Tribunal conducted a holistic appraisal of the evidence before it and applied the lower standard of proof, as it was required to do in this pre-NABA 2022 appeal;

ii) It is alleged that the Tribunal failed to consider the Appellant’s case, instead accepting the Respondent’s analysis “hook, line and sinker, without taken into account the appellant’s narrative”.

It is not an error of law for the Tribunal to accept the submissions of one party. There is nothing in the decision which could lead the reader to think that the Appellant’s evidence had not been considered;

iii) The Tribunal finds that the credibility of the Appellant was damaged by the delay in making asylum claim, in accordance with s8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004. The Appellant submits that in doing so the Tribunal has omitted to have regard to material matters, namely that the disclosure of painful evidence can legitimately be delayed by trauma.

Whilst I accept the premise, the difficulty here is that the Appellant nowhere states that she delayed claiming because she found it hard to talk about her sexuality. Relevant to this point is Mr Ajala’s criticism of the Tribunal’s finding that the Appellant had entered the UK as a visitor knowing that she did not intend to return to Nigeria. He submitted that this was conjecture. In fact this was what the Appellant herself said at Q 3.1 of her asylum interview;

iv) Mr Ajala next took issue with the Tribunal’s characterisation of the discrepancies in the evidence as “serious”. He submitted that in fact they were properly understood as “de minimis” and were too trifling to be taken seriously.

I am afraid I do not agree. The point that the judge was making was that these two women claim to be in a serious relationship. Neither was likely to have made a mistake about, or forgotten, whether their children had met each other. I am satisfied that the Tribunal was entitled to find that discrepancy significant;

v) Mistake of fact. The Tribunal states that there is only one letter from Croydon Area Gay Association. In fact there are two.

Whilst that is right, I am not satisfied that it is an error which undermines the Tribunal’s reasoning. Neither letter speaks of the Appellant being involved – they are both concerned with administrative matters such as membership. The point fairly made by the Tribunal is that if the Appellant is as involved with this group as claimed, there would have been better evidence of this: she could have brought witnesses, other written evidence of their activities, she would have been able to name the other people she attended the Pride march with. Turning to that march, Mr Ajala submitted that it was ridiculous to expect the Appellant to name all the people on a huge demonstration. That is not, however, what the Appellant was being asked to do. She was being asked to name the few individuals who she was posing with in several photographs.

vi) Lastly, on a related note, Mr Ajala suggests that the Tribunal failed to have regard to the totality of the evidence before it, in particular three sets of photographs taken on different occasions.

The decision, it is true, only refers to one set, noting that they all appear to have been taken at the same event. I am not satisfied that anything turns on that. The Tribunal clearly accepted that the two women do know each other, and the remaining photographs took the case little further forward than that.

9. For the reasons I have set out above, I am not satisfied that there is any merit in any of the points raised in this appeal, and it follows that it must be dismissed.

Decisions

10. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is upheld.

11. The appeal is dismissed.

12. There is an order for anonymity in this ongoing protection appeal.

Upper Tribunal Judge Bruce
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
19th November 2025