Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-004951
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/54581/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 20th April 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE DAYKIN

Between

RE
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Pipe, Counsel instructed by Rashid Law Ltd
For the Respondent: Mr Simpson, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 16 January 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
1. This is an appeal brought with permission, by the Appellant against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 1 September 2025 in which the Appellant’s protection and human rights appeal was dismissed.
2. In summary the Appellant’s case is that she is an Albanian national who is at risk from her violent and abusive ex-husband. She has been disowned by her family and as a single mother she is at heightened risk of honour crime. Furthermore, she was sexually assaulted and trafficked in France and is at further risk of re-trafficking.
3. The First-tier Tribunal Judge (“the Judge”) accepted that the appellant was a victim of domestic abusive at the hands of her husband [19]. The Judge also accepted that as a result of an affair the appellant’s marriage ended and she has lost contact with her family [20]. The Judge accepted that the family shunned her but there was nothing within the appellant’s own evidence that there was an active threat from her family [21].
4. Having left her husband, the appellant lived independently and worked to support herself. During this time she was approached on a number of occasions by unknown males seeking information about her. The Appellant asserted that this represented a risk from her ex-husband. The Judge did not accept such a link was made out and that at best it was an assumption [23].
5. Little weight was attached to the Appellant’s suggestion that her ex-husband had influence over arms of the state [24]. The Judge did not accept that the appellant had established a credible risk from ex-husband or that she fell within a particular social group (‘PSG’).
6. In relation to the Appellant’s claim to have been trafficked, the Judge identified inconsistencies in her account. With respect to a psychological report which had been prepared for the appeal, the Judge found that the Appellant had made no mention of her experiences in France as part of the background history. It was accepted during the course of the hearing before me, that was factually inaccurate. The Judge accepted that a lie or omission about sexual abuse does not render an account invalid and that the Appellant was “clearly a fragile and vulnerable individual” [35] but ultimately concluded that even to the lower standard, the Appellant had not been trafficked [36] and [38]. The Judge did, however, conclude that the Appellant may well have been a victim of crime in France [36] but due to the incomplete and muddled nature of the narrative was unable to place weight on it.
7. The Judge accepted that as a victim of domestic abuse she would clearly be at risk if she returned to her family and local area [40]. But as she had done previously, the Judge concluded that she could relocate and support herself and access support services if required.
8. The Judge attached no weight to the country expert report because they had not been directed to any specific evidence in support of the Appellant being unable to access services and the report failed to expand on the CPIN [44]. The Judge attached little weight to the psychological report indicating that it was deficient and inadequate in the manner in which its conclusions have been reached [46].
Summary of grounds and submissions
9. I heard submissions from the representatives which are a matter of record.
10. The Appellant advanced eight written grounds of appeal in total, however, Mr Pipe sensibly acknowledged that the crux of the challenge was found in grounds 5-8, which he had developed in a renewed application for permission to appeal, he was not the author of grounds 1-4. During the course of the hearing the parties focused on grounds 5 and 6, upon which this appeal really turns. For the purposes of brevity, I will adopt the same approach in this decision.
11. Ground 5 contends that the Judge’s failure to consider the country expert report and place weight upon it is irrational. The expert addressed the plausibility of the Appellant’s account, risk upon return and the availability of protection and internal relocation which were all live issues in the appeal.
12. I indicated to the parties that I found the Judge’s finding that the Appellant may well have been a victim of crime in France [36] quite curious and perhaps indicated that the Judge accepted that she was sexually assaulted but that the context did not necessarily contain the exploitative motive to amount to trafficking. Mr Pipe submitted that if the Judge accepted that criminality occurred then it was incumbent on the Judge to deal with the expert report because that addressed the profile of trafficked women from Albania.
13. Ground 6 similarly contends that the Judge failed to properly consider the psychological report.
14. In the Rule 24 response, the Respondent accepted that the Judge fell into error for failing to consider the country expert report but contended it was not material because the Judge found the Appellant not credible, most of the conclusions were inapplicable and the Judge had explained their findings.
15. During the course of the hearing Mr Simpson also fairly accepted that the Judge made a factual error in concluding that the Appellant did not recount her experiences in France to the psychological expert [34] (see 4.8 and 5.3 of the report). But he maintained it was not material because there were other discrepancies that remain. It was not for the Judge to trawl through all the evidence, and the Appellant had failed to draw attention to material parts of the report that it is said the Judge failed to deal with.
16. Mr Pipe in reply submitted that the two accepted errors are material and that if the Judge is going to rely on the psychological report to reach negative findings, then they must be factually accurate.
17. The parties agreed if I found an error of law that the appeal would need to be redetermined de novo. I reserved my decision.
Decision
18. In my judgment, grounds 5 and 6 are made out for the following reasons.
19. The Judge’s reliance on the psychological report not mentioning the sexual assault in France is plainly incorrect and the Respondent accepts that. Although there were other criticisms of the Appellant’s account about her trafficking claim, that incorrect understanding of the evidence contributed to the Judge’s assessment about whether the Appellant was trafficked. I am not confident that the same conclusion would be reached if that error had not been made. That is particularly the case when the Judge seemed to have accepted that the Appellant may have been the victim of a crime in France, which further suggests the Judge accepted she had been sexually assaulted. If that is the case, there is no explanation why the sexual assault was not part of trafficking.
20. In those circumstances it is a clear error in my view to have no regard to a country expert report and place little weight on a psychological report that specifically considered the Appellant’s circumstances. These were important parts of the Appellant’s evidence that went to the issues in the case and required more careful analysis in the round. The Judge did not seem to understand why a country expert report had been provided at all and dismissed it in its entirety [44].
Notice of Decision
21. The appeal is allowed.
22. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of material errors of law and is set aside with no findings preserved.
23. The appeal will be remitted back to the First-tier Tribunal for remaking to be heard by a different judge.

E Daykin

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

12 April 2026