Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM
CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-004756

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/02676/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 12th February 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE JARVIS

Between

AS
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr K. Wood, legal representative for IAS Manchester
For the Respondent: Mr A. Mullen, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard remotely at Field House on 27 January 2026

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the Appellant and any member of his family 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 and/or any member of his family. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction

1. The Appellant appeals to the Upper Tribunal against the decision of Judge Hawden-Beal (hereafter “the Judge”) who dismissed his international protection and human rights appeal on 27 August 2025.

2. Permission was granted by the First-tier tribunal on 24 September 2025.

Relevant background

3. In the judgment, the Judge made the following key findings/observations:

a) The Appellant claimed that he had been told to leave Iran to avoid being hanged by the Iranian government but did not know why he was to be executed, §§3 & 14.

b) The Appellant should be treated as a vulnerable witness due to his accepted mental health problems, §11.

c) It was not credible that the Appellant would be told to leave Iran if the problem related to his father, §39.

d) The Appellant had claimed memory loss problems but had answered the questions about his claim in the screening and main asylum interview, §41.

e) Whilst the Appellant was 16 at the time of the claimed events, he was nonetheless still a “young man” who would have had some idea of what was happening at that time, §44.

f) The Appellant’s mental health was not relevant as this was something which had occurred after the Appellant had travelled to the UK, §44.

g) The Appellant had stated clearly at question 113 of the asylum interview that he had not been involved in politics in Iran, §47.

h) The Appellant had failed to provide the download your information data of his Facebook account and had failed to show that his posts had been seen by anyone in the UK or Iran, §§48 & 49.

i) The Appellant was not an infrequent attendee of political demonstrations in the UK, §49.

j) The Appellant however started his political Facebook activity after the refusal and did not have a political profile in Iran – his political activity in the UK was therefore not genuine, §51.

k) The Appellant’s activity at demonstrations was low level and there was no evidence provided to show that they had been shown in the media, §§49 & 53.

Findings and reasons

4. I heard oral submissions from both representatives of which I kept my own note. Mr Mullen confirmed that the Respondent had not provided a rule 24 response despite the requirement in the UT Procedure Rules that one must be provided.

Ground 1

5. The Appellant averred that the Judge materially erred in their assessment of the Appellant’s claim of problems in Iran by failing to apply the relevant guidance and authorities on the approach to the evidence of vulnerable witnesses.

6. In this ground the Appellant asserts that the Judge effectively ignored his mental health problems and minority (at the material time) when assessing the claim that he was told to leave Iran without being given a detailed explanation as to why that was.

7. Mr Mullen submitted that the argument amounted to nothing more than a disagreement with the conclusion and referred the Tribunal to §§41 & 43 in which the Judge had noted the Appellant’s vulnerability and assessed the evidence accordingly.

8. In my view this ground is made out, and the Appellant has established that the Judge did not properly apply the vulnerable witness guidance despite the earlier finding that the Appellant had such vulnerabilities. I also accept that the Judge did not make sufficiently detailed findings.

9. I firstly conclude that the judgment suffers to some extent by the lack of clarity as to when findings are being made: it appears that the Judge did not in fact make findings on a number of adverse credibility points raised by the Respondent in respect of the claimed events in Iran (see for instance §§37 & 38) and instead sought to reject the Appellant’s claim on the basis that it was not plausible that he would have been sent from Iran if the threat related to the father, §39.

10. At §44, the Judge dealt with the lack of additional detail in the Appellant’s account by finding that:

“If he does not know what it is he is said to have done to attract the adverse attention of the authorities, how can I conclude that he is at risk from them upon return because of his unknown activities prior to leaving Iran? I cannot. He was 16 at the time and although a minor, he was not a child but a young man and so would have some idea of what, if anything, had happened to cause this sudden need for him to leave. But he has no idea at all. I discount his mental health issues at this stage because he did not begin to suffer with them until after his traumatic journey to the UK.”

11. I find that there is a further lack of clarity in the findings in this paragraph. In my view the Judge erred by failing to make clear findings as to whether or not they accepted the Appellant’s evidence that he was told to leave Iran as he would otherwise be hanged by the Iranian authorities.

12. I also find that the Judge did not sufficiently have regard to the Appellant’s minority at the time of the claimed events or make a clear finding as to his evidence that his parents had told him that he was at risk of being executed by the authorities but did not say more because they were panicking, and in a rush (§11). The Judge does not explain why the Appellant’s age at that time should make him more likely to know what was happening when it was his parents who had the relevant information.

13. I also find that the Judge erred in observing, in the opening to §44, that they could not conclude that the Appellant was at risk if the Appellant did not know the underlying reason. Whilst the situation is an unusual one, this was not a case in which the Appellant provided no explanation at all for leaving his home country. It has always been the Appellant’s case that he was told that he had to leave the country due to a threat from the authorities. The Judge was tasked with deciding whether this underlying claim had been established to the lower standard of proof and then to decide whether the Appellant faced a real risk on return to Iran at the same standard.

14. I therefore find that the Judge did not provide adequate reasons for seemingly rejecting the Appellant’s credibility and that this is a material error of law.

15. I also accept that the Judge materially erred in her conclusion that the Appellant’s sur place political activity in the UK was not genuine (at §51). In that paragraph the Judge identified that the Appellant’s Facebook account had been opened after his asylum claim had been refused and that he had no anti-regime involvement in Iran.

16. I accept that the Judge failed to make findings in respect of the Appellant’s own evidence in the hearing (as recorded at §18) that he did not involve himself because he was busy working as a shepherd and his family had told him not to get involved in politics because it could involve the death penalty.

17. I also find that the Judge failed to show any regard to the Appellant’s age at the time he was residing in Iran as relevant to the assessment of how the Appellant’s lack of political activity in Iran impacted upon the credibility of his activities in the UK as an adult.

Ground 2

18. The Appellant also contends that the Judge materially erred in their assessment of the Appellant’s sur place activity and any associated risk on return. Mr Mullen again argued that the ground was a mere disagreement with the outcome.

19. In my view the Judge also materially erred in this aspect of the decision. I find that the Judge’s conclusion that the Appellant could delete his Facebook account and not declare his attendance at numerous anti-regime demonstrations in the UK when engaging with the Iranian authorities during the return process because he was not genuine in those beliefs is undermined by the earlier error in the assessment of the Appellant’s credibility, as laid out above.

20. I therefore find that the Judge’s errors are material and that the decision must be set aside in its entirety. In light of this conclusion, and the need for full fact finding, I find that the appeal should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard by a judge other than Judge Hawden-Beal.

Notice of Decision

21. The Appellant’s appeal is allowed and the First-tier Tribunal’s decision is set aside in its entirety.

I Jarvis

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

5 February 2026