Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-005564
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/69670/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 13th April 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE WELSH

Between

RS
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Forrest of Counsel, instructed by Gray & Co Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms Keerthy, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 17 March 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

Introduction

1. This is an appeal against a decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Prudham (“the Judge”), promulgated on 6 October 2025. By that decision, the Judge dismissed the Appellant’s appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State to refuse her protection and human rights claim.

2. I continue the anonymity order made by the First-tier Tribunal because the potential risk to the Appellant if her identity and circumstances are known outweigh the public interest in open justice.

Factual background

3. The Appellant is a national of Thailand. She entered the United Kingdom (“UK”) on 12 April 2016 and made a protection claim, on 13 March 2017, which was refused as non-certified on 8 January 2020. The refusal decision with which I am concerned in this appeal was made on 19 August 2024 following the Appellant, on 11 March 2024, making further submissions.

4. The Appellant’s claim is set out at [2] of the decision of the Judge, which I summarise, insofar as is relevant to the issues on appeal, as follows:

(1) The Appellant was deceived into paying a woman called ‘JB’ a sum of £60,000 to arrange for her to enter the UK to work.
(2) Once in the UK, the Appellant was forced into prostitution.
(3) The Appellant cannot return to Thailand because she fears JB as a result of (i) JB threatening both her and her parents because of the debt owed and (ii) JB having connections with influential individuals in Thailand and being known to bribe the police.
(4) The Appellant now has the benefit of a conclusive grounds decision from the Single Competent Authority (“SCA”) that she is a victim of modern slavery in both Thailand and the UK for the purposes of forced prostitution.

The decision of the Judge

5. The Judge did not go behind the concession of the Respondent, consistent with the conclusion of the SCA, that the Appellant was a victim of trafficking [26] but concluded that the Appellant had not been trafficked by JB and did not owe JB, or any other trafficker, any debt [22] and gave reasons for that conclusion [18-22]. The Judge went on to make findings in relation to risk on return [24-25] and then, having assessed those findings in the context of the Country Guidance case of AZ (trafficked women) Thailand CG [2010] UKUT 118 (IAC), concluded that the Appellant had not demonstrated a real risk on return [26]. Given that conclusion, the Judge did not go on to consider sufficiency of protection or internal relocation.

The grounds of appeal and grant of permission

6. The grounds of appeal, upon which permission was granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Hoffman, plead as follows:

(1) The Judge gave inadequate reasons for concluding that the Appellant (i) does not owe a debt to the person who trafficked her and (ii) has not been threatened as a result of the outstanding debt.
(2) When assessing risk of return, the Judge failed to take into account, or failed to give sufficient weight to, the fact that the Appellant is a victim of trafficking and failed to make any findings on the issues of sufficiency of protection and internal relocation.

Discussion and conclusions

7. I took into account the contents of the appeal bundle (PDF pages 1-330) and the oral submissions of Mr Forrest and Ms Keerthy.

Ground 1

8. For the following reasons, I conclude that the Judge did not make any error of law.

9. Mr Forrest identified findings of the Judge which he submitted were either inaccurate or given too much weight in the assessment of the Appellant’s credibility and reliability such that the reasons for rejecting the Appellant’s account were inadequate:

(1) The Judge drew an adverse inference from a discrepancy, in relation to JB’s identity, between the Appellant’s account in her asylum interview and her account in her witness statement. In the former account, the Appellant had said that JB was a distant relative who lived in the same village as her whereas in the latter account she made no such reference. Mr Forrest submitted that the gap in time between the asylum interview and the witness statement was such that no adverse inference could properly be drawn.
(2) The Judge stated that the Appellant had said that JB had disappeared, having been arrested on prostitution and drug charges whereas in fact the Appellant had said that she had heard this information second-hand.
(3) The Judge wrongly found that the Appellant had been inconsistent about the debt owed to JB. At [19], the Judge proceeded on the basis that, in her witness statement, the Appellant had said that the debt was £60,000 whereas in her asylum interview the Appellant stated the debt was £30,000. However, a closer examination of the documents demonstrates that, in the former account, the Appellant was referring to the original debt and in the latter account she was referring to the outstanding debt.
(4) The Judge, at [20], appears to have misunderstood one of the text messages sent by JB to the Appellant’s mother. The message refers to the debt accrued as a result of JB taking the Appellant to the UK whereas the Judge appears to have understood it to mean that JB intended to take the Appellant to the UK.

10. Ms Keerthy submitted that the Judge made findings in relation to all key aspects of the Appellant’s account. She identified many findings that are not the subject of criticism and, in relation to those identified by Mr Forrest, she submitted that the Judge had not misunderstood the evidence and those findings were properly made.

11. In my judgment, the conclusion of the Judge is unimpeachable because it is founded on cogent reasoning in relation to all the key aspects of the Appellant’s account. Many of the factors identified by the Judge as undermining the Appellant’s reliability/credibility are not the subject of criticism. Further, despite the eloquence of Mr Forrest’s submissions, I do not accept that the Judge fell into error as he suggested. Addressing each of Mr Forrest’s points in turn:

(1) The Judge was entitled to take into account this discrepancy, despite the gap in time between the giving of the accounts, because it was a fundamental factor going to the identity of JB and, as such, was not a discrepancy that could readily be explained by memory fading.
(2) On a fair reading of the decision, it cannot be said that the Judge wrongly concluded that the Appellant knew first-hand that JB had disappeared, as opposed to hearing this information from someone else. In any event, the Judge did not rely upon this asserted fact in reaching his conclusions.
(3) I agree with Ms Keerthy that the Judge did not err in find that the Appellant had given inconsistent evidence about the debt accrued. In her asylum interview in 2017, the Appellant was stating that the remaining debt was £30,000 whereas her evidence was that when JB threatened her parents, the debt was still £60,000. In any event, this was only one of many inconsistencies taken into account by the Judge.
(4) At [19] the Judge stated, “the texts also reference the sender taking the Appellant to England”. It is not possible to read into this that the Judge misunderstood that the texts were purportedly referring to JB having previously trafficked the Appellant to the UK. Certainly, the Judge did not state that he understood this evidence to be illogical in the context of the Appellant’s case.

Ground 2

12. For the following reasons, I conclude that the Judge did not make any error of law.

13. Mr Forrest submitted that the Judge did not properly consider future risk. He acknowledged that the Judge did apply the criteria at [144] of the country guidance case but submitted that the Judge failed to take into account that former victims of trafficking are more vulnerable to re-trafficking (as set out at [150] of the country guidance case, consistent with past persecution being a significant relevant consideration when assessing future risk) and failed to make any assessment of sufficiency protection or internal relocation.

14. Ms Keerthy submitted that if the Judge did not err in relation to Ground 1 then there was no need to go on to consider risk but, in any event, the Judge did just that. He applied the country guidance case and, whilst the Judge did not expressly refer to the risk of re-trafficking, there was no need to do so given he was plainly aware of the content and meaning of the country guidance case.

15. In my judgment, the Judge was obliged to consider future risk because it was accepted that the Appellant was a victim of trafficking. However, there is no error in the Judge’s approach to the assessment of that risk. His starting point was that she had been trafficked, hence him proceeding to carry out the case specific factual assessment in accordance with the country guidance case. His findings in this regard cover her age, her family, where and with whom she would be living, her previous employment experience, her mental health and the availability of mental health care [24-25].

16. Regarding the making of any assessment arising from the particular circumstances of the trafficking experienced by this Appellant, having found that the Appellant’s account about JB was untrue, and having found that the Appellant did not owe a debt to any trafficker, there were no other relevant findings of fact to feed into the assessment of risk.

17. There was no need for the Judge to make any assessment of sufficiency of protection or internal relocation because he had found, for reasons I conclude were cogent and adequate, that she did not face any real risk that needed to be mitigated by State protection or internal relocation.

Notice of Decision

18. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of a material error on a point of law and so the decision stands.

CE Welsh

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

1 April 2026