Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-004381

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/64063/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 24th November 2025

Before
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE NORTON-TAYLOR

Between
ASA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the appellant: In person and unrepresented
For the respondent: Ms A Ahmed, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 20 November 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.

ERROR OF LAW DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction
1. Mr ASA is challenging the First-tier Tribunal (“FTT”), which dismissed (said ‘no’ to) his appeal against the Secretary of State’s refusal of his asylum and human rights claims. I shall refer to Mr ASA as “the appellant” and to the Secretary of State as “the respondent”.

2. The appellant was represented at the time of the hearing before the FTT and when his application for permission to appeal was made. Due to a lack of funds, he is now not legally represented. He attended the hearing before me with a friend. The Tribunal had booked a Kurdish Sorani interpreter.

3. Before anything else happened, I made sure that the appellant understood the interpreter and then gave a full explanation of the background to this case and my job at the error of law stage. I explained that permission to appeal had only been given on one of the two grounds. The appellant understood all of this. It then became clear that the FTT decision had not been read back to the appellant (he had not been able to afford the costs of this being done by his solicitors). To ensure fairness, I read out all the relevant passages from the FTT decision and these were interpreted for the appellant. I then explained that I would listen to Ms Ahmed first and then the appellant could make any comments on which she is said and add anything else he wanted to.

4. I am satisfied that the appellant was fully able to participate in the hearing. I sincerely hope that he left the hearing having felt that he had been properly listened to.

The FTT’s decision
5. The appellant’s case was as follows. He claimed to have started work at the house of a prominent PUK figure, AS. Over time, he developed a relationship with AS’s wife, BS. This lasted for some time, but AS eventually found out about it. The appellant was informed of this and he believed that he would be harmed or killed by AS. Arrangements were made for him to leave Iraq. He then did this and made the journey from Iraq to the United Kingdom, passing through many countries on the way. He did not make an asylum claim in any of those countries.

6. The FTT did not believe the appellant’s evidence. It found that there were inconsistencies (differences) in the evidence about: how long the relationship with BS had lasted; how often the couple had met; where they had met; and how long have been spent in different countries on the way to the United Kingdom. The FTT did not accept that there was any good reason for the appellant not making a claim in another country before he got to the United Kingdom.

7. The FTT also found that the appellant had contact with family in Iraq and had identification documents there which he could get.

8. The FTT said ‘no’ to the appellant’s case on all grounds.

The grounds of appeal and grant of permission
9. Mr Badar, the barrister who appeared before the FTT, also wrote the grounds of appeal. There were two grounds of appeal. The first ground said that the FTT made legal mistakes by failing to properly consider the risk from AS, who was a high-profile figure in the PUK. The first ground also said that the FTT made legal mistakes by not giving proper reasons about the appellant’s journey from Iraq to the United Kingdom.

10. The second ground said that the FTT made “irrational” findings (in other words, findings that were so unreasonable that no judge could properly make them) about the appellant’s claim relationship with BS.

11. After the application for permission was made, a different FTT judge made a decision on 17 September 2025 which said that the first ground of appeal was arguable (in other words, that it might have some strength in it). However, that judge also said that the second ground of appeal was not arguable (in other words, it had no strength in it at all).

12. There was no renewed application for permission in relation to the second ground of appeal.

Rule 24
13. On 1 October 2025, the respondent provided what is called a rule 24 response. That is a document setting out short written reasons why the FTT did not make any legal mistakes.

The hearing
14. I have already set out some of what was said at the hearing. In addition, I ensured that all of Ms Ahmed’s submissions were translated to the appellant.

15. Ms Ahmed said that the FTT decision had no legal errors and that the appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal should be rejected. The FTT had given proper reasons for not believing the appellant. The FTT had considered all of the evidence before reaching its conclusions. Once the FTT had disbelieved the appellant’s evidence about BS, there could have been no risk from AS. The FTT had also given proper reasons about the appellant’s journey to the United Kingdom. The appellant had been asked questions about this at the FTT hearing. Even if the FTT had made a legal mistake, it could not have made any difference because the main reasons for disbelieving the appellant related to BS and not the journey.

16. At the end of her submissions, Ms Ahmed raised an additional point. She saw that in the appellant’s skeleton argument which had been written by Mr Badar for the FTT hearing there was a brief reference to the appellant being a “vulnerable witness”. In other words, because of health conditions, the appellant should have been treated as a person who might have some difficulties at the hearing when giving evidence.

17. Having then discussed this issue in more detail, Ms Ahmed took instructions, but then confirmed that no concessions were being made. Indeed, she indicated that the respondent’s review document disputed that the appellant was a vulnerable witness. She acknowledged that there was no reference to any application for the appellant to be treated as a vulnerable witness in the FTT decision or the grounds of appeal. Nor did the hearing note of Ms Rushworth (the respondent’s representative at the FTT hearing) make any reference to the issue.

18. I then listened very carefully to what the appellant wanted to say. He told me that he had told the Home Office that he had memory problems. He did not say anything about having had problems at the FTT hearing itself. He said that he had been in the United Kingdom for five years had been asked about his case quite a long time after the events took place. He said that he took medication for his condition and that this will increase from 50mg to 100mg recently. He confirmed it was the same medication is given to him by the GP. At the FTT hearing, he had been mainly asked about dates and times and his journey to the United Kingdom. He emphasised that AS was an important person who could easily kill people.

19. He told me that BS had subsequently been killed because of their relationship.

20. The appellant confirmed that he would be able to get relevant identity documents, but that his main priority was in having safety in this country. The identity documents were not a problem, he said.

21. At the end of the hearing, I did not give my decision. I told the appellant that I would go away and think about everything and then write my decision down.

Decision and reasons
22. I have carefully considered everything in this case before making my decision. I have looked at the FTT decision, the grounds of appeal, the appellant’s written evidence (his interviews and witness statement) and the GP letter from October 2024. I have of course considered everything that the appellant told me at the hearing as well.

23. As I told the appellant, my job is not to make my own decision on the evidence in his case. My job is to decide whether the FTT made any legal mistakes which might have made a difference to the result.

24. For the following reasons, I conclude that the judge did not make any legal mistakes which might have made a difference to the result. These reasons must all be read together.

25. First, it is obvious that once the FTT had disbelieved the appellant’s evidence about the relationship with BS, it was also rejecting the appellant’s evidence that there was any risk from AS. AS would only ever have wanted to harm the appellant if the story about the relationship with BS was true. Therefore, the FTT was not required to deal with AS’ high-profile or other matters in detail. The FTT was right in concentrating on the claimed relationship between the appellant and BS.

26. Second, the FTT was entitled to find that there were significant inconsistencies in the appellant’s evidence about his relationship with BS: the inconsistencies did in fact exist. Those inconsistencies related to the length of the relationship, the number of times the couple met, and where they met: see paragraphs 35-40. The FTT was entitled to find that the interview questions were clear.

27. Third, the FTT said that it had considered all of the evidence in the round. There is nothing to show that this was not in fact done. I am satisfied the FTT did have regard to all of the evidence before making its decision.

28. Fourth, the FTT was entitled to find that there were inconsistencies in the appellant’s evidence about his journey to the United Kingdom. These problems were set out in the reasons for refusal letter and the respondent review. I am also satisfied that the appellant was questioned about this at the hearing: see paragraph 42. The FTT was entitled to rely on those inconsistencies and find that the appellant had not given a reliable story about his journey. The FTT was also entitled to agree with what Ms Rushworth had said at the hearing about the failure to claim asylum in other safe countries: see paragraphs 17 and 43. The FTT was aware of the appellant’s explanation, but did not accept it.

29. Fifth, even if the FTT should have said more about the appellant’s failure to have claimed asylum in another safe country, it could not have made any difference to the outcome. For good reasons, the FTT had already rejected the appellant’s account about the relationship with BS before it considered the failure to claim asylum before. In addition, that point was clearly not central to the reasons for rejecting the main part of the appellant’s account (the claimed relationship).

30. Sixth, although permission was not granted on the second ground of appeal, for the sake of completeness I will deal with it briefly here. On any view, none of the FTT’s findings were irrational. They were properly based on the evidence as a whole.

31. Seventh, I address the vulnerable witness issue. I commend Ms Ahmed for raising it at the hearing. I am bound to say that it was not in any way an obvious point because it only featured very briefly in a single paragraph of the skeleton argument prepared for the FTT hearing.

32. I conclude that the FTT did not make a legal mistake by not addressing it in the decision, or even if it did make a mistake, it was not a mistake which might have made a difference to the outcome.

33. I am satisfied that no oral application was made at the FTT hearing to treat the appellant as a vulnerable witness. There is no record of this on the face of the FTT decision, it does not feature in Ms Rushworth’s note of the hearing, nothing is said about the issue in the grounds of appeal, and there is no other indication that it was ever raised except for the brief reference in the skeleton argument. I infer from all of this that Mr Badar ultimately took the view that there was no proper basis for treating the appellant as a vulnerable witness, or even if he were so treated, it could not have affected the FTT’s assessment of the evidence.

34. In the first instance, I conclude that the FTT did not make a legal mistake on this issue because it was not in fact properly put forward at the hearing. Without more, the brief reference in the skeleton argument was insufficient to make it a meaningful application.

35. Alternatively, I am satisfied that the FTT did have the issue in mind when considering the appellant’s case. The FTT had after all confirmed that it had taken all relevant materials into account and this would have included the skeleton argument and the GP letter. The FTT was not required to set out each and every item of evidence and each and every submission made (whether that was an oral submission or a written submission). It would have been better if the FTT had expressly referred to the issue in its decision, but for reasons set out below, there was no substance to the vulnerability issue in any event and it did not represent a significant part of the appellant’s case.

36. In the further alternative, it may be said that the reference in the skeleton argument was enough for the FTT to be under an obligation to expressly address it. If that is right, it is important to look at the substance of any claimed vulnerability. Several factors show that there was no substance:

(a) the appellant has not said that he had specific problems giving evidence at the FTT hearing. What he said to me was that he had told the Home Office of memory problems;

(b) having looked at screening interview, the long asylum interview, and the preliminary information questionnaire, it is clear that the appellant stated that he had no medical conditions: see pages 62, 639, and 655 of the bundle;

(c) having looked at the appellant’s witness statement, it is clear that he was blaming an interpreter for difficulties, not memory problems: see page 38 of the bundle;

(d) the appellant has claimed that he suffers from PTSD, but there has never been any confirmation of a diagnosis: see paragraph 20;

(e) I have looked at the GP letter from October 2024. It states that the appellant had reported low mood, anxiety, flashbacks and dreams. Nothing is said about memory problems. The stated medication was fluoxetine, which is a well-known medication prescribed for, amongst other conditions, depression and anxiety;

(f) as mentioned earlier, the fact that nothing about vulnerability was said at the FTT hearing by Mr Badar, or in the grounds of appeal, leads to the inference that a considered the new was taken that there was no substance to this issue.

37. I have taken the factors set out above in their appropriate context. The only basis on which any vulnerability could possibly have had an impact on the FTT’s assessment of the evidence related to whether the appellant suffered from memory problems. Yet, as is clear from the factors listed in the previous paragraph, such problems were not mentioned by the appellant previously and the inconsistencies relied on by the FTT were blamed on interpretation difficulties.

38. Following on from what I have just said, even if the FTT had said that the appellant was a vulnerable witness, on the evidence before it I have no doubt that the same negative credibility findings would inevitably have been made and that appellant’s case would inevitably have been rejected. That is because there was no reliable evidence before the FTT which could possibly have shown that all or most of the problems in the appellant’s evidence were down to significant memory problems.

39. Therefore, the appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal is rejected.

Anonymity
40. The appellant shall still be referred to as ASA because this is a protection case.

Notice of Decision
The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of a material error on a point of law (there are no legal mistakes in the decision).

The appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed (rejected) and the decision of the First-tier Tribunal stands.

H Norton-Taylor
Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 20 November 2025