Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-000489
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/03323/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 27th April 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE I. LEWIS

Between

GN
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms S Aziz of Counsel
For the Respondent: Ms A Nolan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 10 April 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 against the decision of First Tier Tribunal Judge Robertson, promulgated on 22 December 2025, dismissing the appeal of the Appellant against a decision of the Respondent dated 7 August 2024 to refuse protection.
2. The Appellant is a citizen of Pakistan born in April 1992. His full personal details are not reproduced here in keeping with the anonymity direction.
3. The Appellant arrived in the United Kingdom in February 2023 on a student visa. In the event, he did not take up his course. On 19 July 2023 he made an application for asylum, which was in due course refused for reasons set out in a ‘reasons for refusal’ letter (‘RFRL’) of 7 August 2024.
4. The Appellant appealed to the IAC. He appeared before the Tribunal on 5 December 2025 as a litigant in person. His appeal was dismissed for the reasons set out in the ‘Decision and Reasons’ of Judge Robertson.
5. The Appellant lodged an application for permission to appeal. I am told that the Grounds were drafted by him. It is unclear whether he had assistance from any other person or whether he made use of artificial intelligence. Permission to appeal was granted by First Tier Tribunal Judge Lawrence on 15 January 2026. In material part the grant of permission is in these terms:
“All grounds are arguable for the reasons stated in the grounds. There is for example an arguable lack of adequate clarity as to whether or not the Tribunal accepted that the Applicant has been in a sexual relationship with a person of the same sex in the United Kingdom, and no consideration of whether he would wish to have such relationships if removed to Pakistan, and it is arguable that the Tribunal has relied on assumptions regarding normative bisexual identity and behaviour. I also note that the applicable standards of proof have not been identified by the Tribunal.”
6. As will be apparent from that passage, the Appellant’s protection claim was based on his sexuality. He claimed to be bisexual.
7. In Pakistan he had been married and had a child. Although it is indicated that he had an understanding that he was bisexual in Pakistan, it was not something he ever explored, or gave voice to, whilst there. In contrast, he claims that within the same month of his arrival in the United Kingdom, he began having relationships with men in the UK. He claims to have had three such relationships. Some supporting evidence was provided in respect of the relationships, and one of his claimed partners appeared to give evidence before the First Tier Tribunal.
8. Notwithstanding the terms of the grant of permission, in my judgment it is adequately clear that the First Tier Tribunal judge rejected the Appellant’s claim of being in a sexual relationship with a person of the same sex in the United Kingdom. Further, there is in my judgment nothing of substance in the issue raised by Judge Lawrence in granting permission to appeal in respect of standard of proof, a matter not actually pleaded in the Grounds of challenge.
9. That it is adequately clear that the First Tier Tribunal rejected the Appellant’s claim to be bisexual is manifest on the face of the decision. Indeed, it is seemingly recognised in the Grounds, which at paragraph 2 state in terms “The Judge rejected the Appellant’s account of being bisexual”.
10. Further to this, it is to be noted that Judge Robertson clearly identified the issue of sexuality as being a key issue - see paragraph 5(i) of the Decision, “Whether the appellant has a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason namely membership of a particular social group on account of his sexuality”.
11. Paragraph 14 similarly refers to this being the essential basis of the Appellant’s case: “The appellant submits that he is bisexual”.
12. At paragraph 16, over sub-paragraphs (i) to (ix), the Judge essentially gives reasons in support of the conclusion stated at the beginning of paragraph 16, “Overall, I did not find the appellant to be a credible witness”.
13. These matters are all taken forward to paragraph 17, which in part includes the following:
“In the light of my findings, I do not consider that the appellant has a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of his sexuality. … He is not a credible witness. … He has stated that he would be at risk on return to Pakistan, however, as detailed above, I do not accept that this would be the case. Overall, I did not find his evidence to be credible, and I have rejected his account of his sexuality.”
14. In my judgment, it is adequately clear that those passages make it plain that the Judge did not accept that there had been a sexual relationship with a man in the United Kingdom. That is manifest from the overall rejection of the credibility of the Appellant, and specifically the rejection of his “account of his sexuality”. As such, it seems to me plain that the Judge made a clear finding rejecting the Appellant’s narrative with regard to relationships in the United Kingdom, and in respect of his claim to be bisexual.
15. The Grounds of challenge in part plead that the judge failed to adopt the approach set out in HJ (Iran) [2010] UKSC 31. I find there to be no substance in that pleading. HJ (Iran) sets out a staged approach to cases such as this. That includes at the first stage, per Lord Hope of Craighead at paragraph 35:
“(a) The first stage, of course, is to consider whether the applicant is indeed gay. Unless he can establish that he is of that orientation, he will not be entitled to be treated as a member of the particular social group. …”
16. Of course, in the instant case, the claim is not that the Appellant is gay but that he is bisexual, but the same approach applies. Having made it clear that he rejected that claim, it was not necessary for the Judge to go on to consider the other stages in the HJ (Iran) test which relate to possible behaviour of an applicant in the event of return to his country. The Grounds are essentially misconceived in this regard.
17. The Grounds otherwise seek to challenge the Judge’s evaluation and assessment of the Appellant’s credibility. Indeed, Ms Aziz’s focus before me was, in the main, to seek to challenge this aspect of the Decision.
18. In such circumstances, it is helpful to set out here the entirety of paragraph 16:
“16. Overall, I did not find the appellant to be a credible witness. His evidence was vague, inconsistent and lacking in details.
i) In Pakistan the appellant claims to have become aware of his sexuality as a teenager but was too afraid to act on his feelings. He followed his family expectations and entered an arranged marriage. In interview (AIR Q 30) he denied that his sexuality changed the way he associated with people as he kept his feelings to himself. He was aware that it was a sin and that such people were killed, but he had not seen anything like that himself. When asked when he first began to be fearful (AIR Q19) he stated that it was when he started to receive threats from his family. In contrast, in his statement the witness [F] refers to the appellant sharing ‘the trouble event’ that occurred to him in the past, and the times he saw people being publicly assaulted and humiliated because of their sexuality. ‘Listening to his experiences and the horrors he has endured was horrific’.
ii) The appellant came to the UK on a student visa to study Global Events Management, but when told that he would have to wait for the next intake due to insufficient student numbers, he chose not to return to his wife and child in Pakistan. No evidence has been submitted of correspondence with the university about the cancellation of the course and his explanation as to why he had not returned home was vague.
iii) The respondent submits that Section 8 Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004 is applicable as the appellant did not claim asylum at the first opportunity. Again, his evidence on this point was vague. He stated that he claimed only after receiving threats from his family, but on his evidence, these began in March 2023. He gave no satisfactory reason for delaying his claim until 20 July 2023.
iv) In relation to the alleged threats the appellant has submitted 2 translated messages from 14 July 2023. However, there is no evidence to support a finding that they were received from his family. He claims to have blocked numbers and deleted previous messages, saving them only after taking advice from a legal adviser in November 2023. Yet in his interview he asked for 2 months in order to obtain evidence from Pakistan. There is no evidence that he has made any effort to retrieve evidence of the claimed calls and messages, despite being aware of their importance. His account is inconsistent. He is also inconsistent as to who had threatened him, variously his father, his father-in-law and his brother the latter of whom, according to the appellant’s visa application, lives in London.
v) In interview (AIR Q62) the appellant refers to a family friend observing him leaving a gay club one afternoon when working as a delivery driver, an account he repeats in his witness statement. It is only at the hearing that he submits that the family friend threatened him and told him that he had observed him going into the club so knew that he had not just gone in by mistake. On the basis of this, and with no further discussion or evidence, it’s claimed that his family have disowned him and threatened to kill him. I find this implausible.
vi) I find the lack of clarity of the appellant’s account in respect of the alleged threats to cast significant doubt as to the truthfulness of his evidence. It seems unlikely that within weeks of his arrival in the UK he would be spotted by a family friend who would have the unassailable trust of his family in reporting the appellant’s sexuality. He made no mention of attempting to discuss matters with his family, only with his wife who he claims to have blocked him, but again no evidence was submitted.
vii) The appellant claims to have had 3 relationships with men since arriving in the UK. Despite claiming to be bisexual he has not sought out women as he could not afford club entrance fees. This conflicts with his claimed frequent attendance at gay clubs. He states that he met one partner in Grindr but has submitted no evidence of his account. Even if he had deleted the app as claimed I would expect his account to remain.
viii) Only one partner attended to give evidence, [F] with whom it was submitted he had been in an open relationship since November 2023. Despite the apparent length of their relationship the couple appeared to know very little about each other. Unbeknownst to the appellant [F] had been in a relationship when they met, a civil partnership of several years standing, and he continued to meet other partners.
ix) In support of his appeal the appellant submitted photos of himself with a group of men at a club, however he was unable to identify them or when it was taken. Other photos are of him at Pride events and with [F}. I attach little weight to the photos as they are undated and self-serving.”
19. It may be seen that the Judge set out key findings and reasoning over a series of nine sub-paragraphs. In my judgment, for the main part, those paragraphs are clear, cogent and sustainable.
20. For example, at paragraph 16(i) the Judge makes a clear finding of a discrepancy between the Appellant’s narrative of his life in Pakistan and the narrative of his witness, F, as to what the Appellant had reported to him. Necessarily, that discrepancy is a matter that undermines the credibility of both the Appellant and his witness. This is but one matter in what is a clear, broad, ‘in-the-round’ evaluation of the Appellant’s evidence and case, informing the overall conclusion in respect of credibility.
21. There is no specific challenge to the observations of paragraph 16(ii) as to the vagueness of the Appellant’s evidence.
22. I see no difficulty at paragraph 16(iii) with regard to the reliance upon section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004. Ms Aziz sought to persuade me that in cases of this sort it is not unusual for there to be some delay in claiming asylum, and identifies the Appellant’s references in his witness statement to being ashamed and hesitant about his circumstances. However, those references relate to the period up until the time that he decided to claim asylum, triggered by his claim to have received threats in March 2023. The Judge focussed on the delay from that time until July 2023 when the application for asylum was made. There is no explanation for that further delay offered in the witness statement. It seems to me entirely sustainable in the circumstances for the Judge to observe that there was no satisfactory reason for delaying the claim; in those circumstances the Judge was statutorily bound to have regard to that as an adverse credibility factor. There is nothing to suggest that the Judge thought that it was a conclusive factor. Again, this is just one of a number of matters taken into account in a careful, well-reasoned, in-the-round assessment.
23. Similarly, there is nothing objectionable in what is said at 16(iv).
24. Ms Aziz made submissions in respect of paragraphs 16(v) and 16(vi). Indeed, in this regard I was caused some hesitation by the use of the word ‘implausible’ at the end of paragraph 16(v), and the reference to a particular sequence of events being “seem[ingly] unlikely” at paragraph 16(vi) - which carry with them a suggestion of reasoning based on implausibility. It is trite that implausible things happen, and to that extent reliance upon plausibility is to be a matter of significant caution. However, ultimately I am persuaded that the Judge’s reasoning in this regard is adequate, particularly when those two paragraphs are read together.
25. Paragraph 16(v), in part identifies a discrepancy in the Appellant’s evidence. It was only at the hearing, the Judge records, that the Appellant suggested that the family friend who had seen him leaving a gay club had threatened him. No such claim of a threat had been made during the application process. It seems to me that that discrepancy might be characterised as being an implausible discrepancy. Paragraph 16(vi) is a continuation of the narrative in this regard: insofar as it is the Appellant’s case that the family friend, having seen him leaving the gay club, then reported the matter to his parents, which was met by his parents threatening him, it seems to me that it is not untoward for the Judge to have regard to the notion that the parents might at least have wanted to hear the Appellant’s side of things, or to seek to clarify with the Appellant the accuracy of what had been reported to them, or to see whether there was any sort of explanation. It is not perverse or irrational of the Judge to characterise the notion that a son would be cut-off and threatened by his family on the basis of a single report without any attempt to discuss the matter, as ‘seemingly unlikely’ or ‘implausible’, and to consider further weight was leant to such a notion by the Appellant’s lack of clarity in respect of the supposedly resulting threats. Accordingly, I am not persuaded that the Judge fell into any material error in those paragraphs, which in any event must be read in the context of the overall in-the-round assessment. Even if it were otherwise, it seems to me that there is enough in the other reasoning to sustain the overall conclusion.
26. The reasoning of paragraph 16(vii) is in two parts. The latter part is the absence of supporting evidence that the Judge considered might reasonably be obtainable. It seems to me, notwithstanding that there is no absolute prerequisite of corroboration, that it is trite, that it is open for a decision-maker to place adverse weight on the absence of evidence that might reasonably be expected to be available.
27. The Grounds plead that the first part of 16(vii) amounts to stereotyping: that the reasoning is rooted in a stereotypical expectation that a bisexual person would be pursuing relationships with both men and women at the same time. In my judgment, that is not the foundation of the reasoning in 16(vii). The reasoning of 16(vii) is addressing the Appellant’s explanation for why he had not had any sort of relationship with a woman since he had arrived in the United Kingdom. His explanation was that he could not afford entrance to clubs. The Judge, entirely understandably and sustainably, observes, in effect, that this appears entirely inconsistent with the notion that he was paying to go to gay clubs. To that extent, the Judge has properly identified that the Appellant’s reason, or explanation, was discrepant with his behaviour. It was open for the judge to have regard to this as an adverse factor in the overall credibility assessment.
28. Paragraph 16(viii), again in my judgment, is entirely sustainable. The lack of knowledge of the Appellant regarding his witness’s personal life is striking, particularly in circumstances where the photographs provided in support of the application of the appeal repeatedly refer to the witness as a ‘partner’ – a term which is to be reasonably contrasted with a person with whom the appellant merely had occasional sexual encounters. This is a further echo of the matters referred to at paragraph 16(i).
29. It seems to me that it is in this context that the reference at paragraph 17 to the relationship appearing “superficial” is to be understood. The Grounds identify the use of the word ‘superficial’ and seek to plead that the superficiality of the relationship is not necessarily a hallmark of whether the relationship is a genuine sexual relationship. In my judgement, the use of the word ‘superficial’ is, in context, a reference to the lack of any real knowledge of one of the other - which in turn undermines the credibility of there being the sort of relationship described by the Appellant.
30. There is nothing specifically objectionable in the Judge’s observations at paragraph 16(ix), and I do not understand those to be the subject of direct challenge in the Grounds. There was no articulation of any specific challenge in this regard by Ms Aziz.
31. In such circumstances, all of the matters at paragraph 16 represent adequate reasoning in respect of the Appellant’s narrative, and appropriately and sustainably inform the conclusion at paragraph 17, which I have already partially quoted from.
32. That is an end to the challenge as to the findings on the Appellant’s credibility, save unless there is anything in the point raised in the grant of permission to appeal with regard to standard of proof.
33. This particular appeal, given the date of application, fell under the NABA regime. As such, the applicable standard of proof in establishing engagement with a Convention reason was the balance of probabilities. There is no express articulation in the decision that the NABA regime applied, and there is no express articulation as to the terms of the NABA regime, or any particular reference to standard of proof at all with regard to the Refugee Convention in the self-direction at paragraph 6 of the Decision. However, at paragraph 7, in the context of humanitarian protection, the Judge correctly identifies that the lower standard of proof would be applicable.
34. At paragraph 18 of the Decision, the Judge write: “The asylum appeal is dismissed, and the Articles 2 and 3 appeals fail.” It seems to me that the reference to Articles 2 and 3 there must be read as a reference to the case failing under the lower standard. If that is the case, then necessarily the case could not succeed under the ‘balance of probabilities’ NABA standard. As such, the failure to make any express reference to the NABA standard is ultimately immaterial. In this regard, I also accept the observations of Ms Nolan to the effect that a Judge of the First-tier Tribunal should generally be understood to be aware of the applicable law, and it should not be considered that there has been a misdirection simply by a failure to set out in terms the relevant law. There is nothing otherwise in the Decision to suggest that there was any error of approach to the overall standard of proof to be applied. Even if there were an error in this regard, for the reasons already given, it could not be materially in the Appellant’s favour.
35. In all such circumstances, the challenge to the decision of Judge Robertson must fail.

Notice of Decision
36. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal contains no material error of law, and accordingly stands.
37. The Appellant’s appeal remains dismissed.

The above is a corrected transcript of ex tempore reasons given at the conclusion of the hearing.

I. Lewis

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

22 April 2026