Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-004735

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/60986/2023
LP/13119/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 23rd of January 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HANBURY

Between

LGL
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr S Coburn, Legal Representative instructed by Immigration Advice Service
For the Respondent: Ms S Lecointe, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 9 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
Introduction
1. The appellant first came to the UK on a visit visa in December 2019. He made an asylum and protection claim in January 2020 alleging that his cousin had been killed in Trinidad in connection with gang retaliatory violence. He claimed that his brother was killed in 2020. On 10 November 2023 he made a protection claim, which was refused by the respondent. In August 2025 he prepared his most recent witness statement setting out the detailed events giving rise to his claim and he served an expert report from a Ms Mohammed dated 23 August 2025.
2. The First-tier Tribunal appeal hearing took place in Birmingham on 26 August 2025. FTT Judge Jepson decided to reject the appellant’s claim in his decision, which was made only three days after the hearing had taken place on 26 August 2025. He rejected the credibility of the appellant’s account and found multiple inconsistencies including in his chronology of events, the gangland approaches and whether or not he was at his mother’s house when the gang came for him. There were also questions about the conflicting accounts of his cousin’s death and contradictions about whether he was approached directly or not. The inconsistencies led the judge to conclude that the appellant had not been a reliable witness and although he considered the report by the appellant’s expert witness Ms Mohammed, he decided that she did not have a degree of expertise on Trinidadian gangs to attach much weight to her report. The judge acknowledged her report was diligent and carefully prepared and she had not strayed into the Tribunal’s role in judging the credibility of the appellant’s account. However, her report cause did not cause the judge to alter the negative view he had reached of the appellant’s credibility. He concluded that the report provided some support but not enough to overcome his credibility concerns. He was not therefore persuaded that there was a Refugee Convention reason for the appellant’s presence in the UK and he did not qualify for international humanitarian protection on this or any other basis. Furthermore, he rejected the human rights claim. The judge accepted that the appellant had married a British national and had a subsisting relationship with her but this did not provide any additional basis for being allowed to remain the UK.
The appeal from the First-tier Tribunal’s decision
3. First-tier Tribunal Judge McMahon, granted permission to appeal. There were two principal grounds which have been expanded upon by Mr Coburn today. First, there was said to have been a failure to engage fully with the expert evidence. The judge had not been correct to attach less weight to Ms Mohammed’s report because of doubts about her expertise in the specific area of gangland violence that she was dealing with. The First-tier Tribunal considered it at least arguable that the judge had not adequately grappled with the substance of her findings which supported the appellant’s account of gang violence. The expert evidence was not required to prove credibility directly but did provide some context to it and helped to turn generalities into specific findings which the Tribunal could have made. Overall, the judge had been wrong to reject the appellant’s account in its entirety, if considered in the round having proper regard to the expert evidence. Secondly, there was an issue of procedural fairness in relation to whether matters which formed the basis of the judge’s findings were put to the appellant. Mr Coburn submitted the judge’s decision had been procedurally unfair in that, for example, at paragraph 47 the judge had specifically acknowledged that a contradiction between the what the appellant had said in interview about when his cousin died had not been put to the appellant in the hearing. However, I note that in that paragraph the judge acknowledged he should attach less weight to the contradictions in the Asylum Interview Record (AIR) than would otherwise be the case. He noted a number of other discrepancies, which were also acknowledged not to have been put to the appellant in cross-examination.
4. In relation to Ms Mohammed’s evidence, she was an expert in international relations with reference to Trinidad gangs. Therefore, her evidence provided context to the appellant’s claim. The judge had been wrong not to attach greater weight to the expert evidence. I was referred to the leading case of TUI v Griffiths [2023] UKSC 48 (TUI) in which the Supreme Court said that if a party wished to challenge the content of expert evidence it should normally do so by calling his own expert. If that party wanted to cross-examine the appellant about specific matters, they should have done so. Mr Coburn submitted that the failure to attach sufficient weight to the expert evidence was a material error. He also submitted that there had been a failure to deal properly with the matters that had not been put in cross-examination.
5. Ms Lecointe said there had been no procedural unfairness, it being open to the judge to decide the case as he had. He had reached a highly negative view of the appellant’s credibility. The onus had been on the appellant to prove his case. It was accepted the respondent had not put every point to him but it is also the case, she said, that the respondent’s position had remained largely consistent. It had put the appellant’s credibility firmly in issue and merely pointing out certain discrepancies in the judge’s decision was not sufficient to establish a material error of law. Even if there was an error, I was urged not to set aside the decision and remit it to the First-tier Tribunal for a fresh hearing. The judge was entitled to look at the evidence he heard on the day, analyse the totality of the evidence and reach conclusions. She referred me to several leading cases on the extent to which appellate courts and tribunals will interfere with a judges’ findings of fact, including Peshawar [2002] EWCA Civ 173 and TUI. She also referred to Abdi and others v Entry Clearance Officer [2023] EWCA Civ 1455, [2023] All ER (D) 45 (Dec). She said there had been no material misdirection of the judge, whose decision had been reached having carefully weighed up the evidence.
6. Mr Coburn responded by reiterating several points he had made. He said the report from Ms Mohammed should at least have been considered in full because it informed the credibility decision. The evidence had to be looked in the round. Overall, the analysis carried out by the judge was sufficiently flawed to justify a finding that there was an error of law which justified interfering with that decision.
Conclusion
7. I have carefully considered the grounds of appeal, the skeleton argument and the oral submissions The decision is 95 paragraphs long but fundamental to the judge’s decision was a negative view of the appellant’s credibility. The judge considered Ms Mohammed’s evidence as part of an overall assessment of the case. The judge had in mind that some of the matters he considered had not been put to the appellant in cross examination. It may have been procedurally unfair to consider those matters if he had not explicitly acknowledged this. However, having regard to the paragraphs, I was referred to by Mr Coburn, namely those from 47 to 61, I am satisfied the judge did not attach excessive weight to any points which had not been raised in the course of cross examination.
8. Overall, therefore I have concluded that the decision was one the judge was entitled to come to on the evidence. There is therefore no material error of law and the appeal is dismissed.

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

9 December 2025