Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-001829
First-tier Tribunal No: EA/03262/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 23 July 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HOFFMAN

Between

AUSTINE OSAS ORIABURE
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: In person
For the Respondent: Ms L Clewley, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 13 July 2026

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant appeals, with permission, against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Sweet (“the judge”) promulgated on 16 February 2026. In that decision, the judge dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s decision dated 19 September 2023 refusing his application for leave to remain under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) as the spouse of an EEA national.

2. For the reasons set out below, the appeal is dismissed.

Background

3. The appellant is a national of Nigeria born in 1988. The circumstances in which the appellant arrived in the United Kingdom are unclear from the papers before me. It appears that it was sometime in 2022. In any event, on 4 June 2023, he submitted an application for leave to remain under the EUSS. The appellant claimed that he was married to a Portuguese national, Ms Aicha Da Cunha El Havedh (“the sponsor”), who had been granted settled status on 29 May 2020. They claimed to have married on 23 September 2020.

4. In September 2023, the appellant and the sponsor were twice invited to marriage interviews at the Home Office. They both failed to attend either interview, and no explanation was provided. Consequently, on 19 September 2023, the respondent made a decision to refuse the appellant’s EUSS application on the basis that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the marriage was one of convenience entered into as a means to obtain leave to remain.

5. The appellant exercised his right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.

The appeal before the First-tier Tribunal

6. The appeal was heard on 3 February 2026. The appellant appeared as a litigant in person via Cloud Video Platform (CVP). The sponsor was not present; the appellant claimed that she could not afford to take the time off work.

7. The judge dismissed the appeal after finding, on the balance of probabilities, that the appellant had not established that his marriage to the sponsor was genuine and subsisting. He attached weight to the fact that neither the appellant nor his spouse attended the two scheduled marriage interviews, and that the spouse did not attend the hearing. He found the appellant to be an unreliable witness, noting his inconsistent evidence concerning a purported former fiancée, Winner Adumaza, who was mentioned in his 2022 visa application despite the appellant’s claim to have married the sponsor in September 2020, and continuing financial transactions with Ms Adumaza after the relationship was said to have ended. Taken together, these matters led the judge to conclude that the claimed marriage was a marriage of convenience and to dismiss the appeal.

The appeal to the Upper Tribunal

8. The appellant sought permission to appeal, advancing the following grounds:

a. The judge failed to consider the evidence before the First-tier Tribunal in the round and gave insufficient weight to the documentary and oral evidence relating to the relationship between the appellant and the sponsor.

b. The judge attached disproportionate weight to what were said to be minor inconsistencies in the evidence, whilst failing properly to apply the applicable standard of proof, namely the balance of probabilities.

c. The judge failed to consider the appellant's and sponsor's circumstances under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

9. On 1 April 2026, First-tier Tribunal Judge Elliott granted permission to appeal on a limited basis, namely that it was arguable that the judge had erred by failing to analyse the documents contained within the appellant's evidence bundle. As I explain below, I do not consider that to have been an arguable material error of law.

The hearing

10. The appellant did not attend the hearing for the 10 am start time. The clerk therefore called the appellant who claimed not to have received the notice of hearing. The Tribunal therefore arranged for a CVP link to be set up so that the appellant could attend remotely.

11. Once he had joined the hearing, the appellant said that he would like a few days to “mentally prepare”. I refused the application for an adjournment. The Tribunal’s records showed that the notice of hearing had been sent to the correct address, and, as I explained to the appellant, he had acted in person before the First-tier Tribunal; he was familiar with the decision of the First-tier Tribunal that was under appeal; he had drafted the grounds of appeal himself, so was aware of the issues; permission to appeal had been granted on a narrow basis, namely whether the judge had erred by not engaging with the contents of the appellant’s bundle of evidence; and the appellant ought to have anticipated an upcoming error of law hearing. I was therefore satisfied that he had been afforded a fair opportunity to prepare his case, that proceeding with the hearing would cause little, if any, prejudice to him, and that the interests of justice did not require an adjournment.

12. However, having obtained the appellant’s confirmation that he continued to reside, and was presently at, the Marble Arch address provided in his witness statement, I offered him two alternatives. First, the matter could be stood down until later that day to allow him additional time to prepare, in which case he would be expected to attend in person given that he lived within walking distance of the hearing centre. Secondly, the hearing could proceed remotely by CVP. Having considered those options, the appellant elected for the latter course.

13. As the appellant was unrepresented, I summarised the basis upon which Judge Elliott had granted permission to appeal. The appellant then made submissions in support of his appeal. Following Ms Clewley’s submissions on behalf of the respondent, I summarised her position to the appellant, who was then afforded an opportunity to reply. The parties’ submissions are recorded in the record of proceedings and are not repeated here.

14. At the end of the hearing, I reserved my decision.

Discussion

15. Before considering the contents of the evidence bundle relied upon by the appellant before the First-tier Tribunal, it is necessary to examine the reasons given by the judge for dismissing the appellant's EUSS appeal. Those reasons are set out at [11]-[12]:

“11. The burden of proof is on the appellant, and the civil standard of the balance of probabilities applies. In the absence of the appellant’s spouse, whether at the marriage interviews in September 2023 or today, I am not persuaded that this is a genuine and subsisting marriage (which was stated today to have been by proxy) and therefore conclude, as the respondent had in the refusal letter, that this is a marriage of convenience. I have not found the appellant to be a credible witness.

12. The appellant gave vague evidence regarding his visit to the UK in 2022 with his fiancée, which was supported by a covering letter from his parents – which also said that the appellant and his fiancée would be getting married ‘soon’ – but he then maintained today that the relationship with his fiancée ended in 2021, or, as he stated later, in 2022. However, he continued making payments from his Monzo bank account to her until 2023. Taking into account that he was already married to his current spouse in September 2020, this casts further doubt on the genuineness of his current marriage.”

16. The judge's reasoning therefore comprised two principal strands. First, the sponsor failed not only to attend the marriage interviews but also to attend the appeal hearing. Secondly, when applying to visit the United Kingdom in 2022, the appellant made no mention of the sponsor. Instead, he indicated that he intended to travel with another woman, whom he described as his fiancée. In my judgment, both were plainly relevant considerations which it was rational for the judge to take into account.

17. As explained above, Judge Elliott granted permission on the basis that it was arguable that the judge erred by failing to analyse the documents contained within the appellant's bundle. However, Judge Sweet was plainly aware of the existence of that bundle because he expressly referred to it at [5], recording that it contained a “skeleton argument, witness statements of himself and his spouse, each dated 12 September 2023, and other documents in support”. The question, therefore, is whether the judge was obliged expressly to engage with the contents of that bundle when reaching his findings. In my judgment, he was not.

18. First, judges of the First-tier Tribunal are encouraged to give concise reasons proportionate to the significance and complexity of the issues in dispute. Nor is a judge required to identify or discuss every item of evidence relied upon in reaching findings of fact: see paragraphs 15.4–15.5 of the Practice Direction of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal dated 1 November 2024.

19. Secondly, there is no basis for concluding that, by failing expressly to address the evidence contained within the appellant's bundle, the judge overlooked anything capable of making a material difference to the outcome of the appeal:

a. The bundle was just 23 pages long. As well as the skeleton argument, it included the decision under appeal and the letter confirming the sponsor’s EUSS status.

b. The biographical data pages of the appellant's and sponsor's passports, together with the proxy marriage documentation, did not directly engage with the matters that were actually in dispute before the First-tier Tribunal. The issue was not whether a marriage ceremony had taken place, but whether the marriage was genuine and not one of convenience. Their passports and marriage documents did little to assist in resolving that issue. In any event, I note that those documents were also contained within the respondent's bundle.

c. The witness statements of the appellant and sponsor are both brief, each extending to little more than one page. They contain very little detail and do little more than assert that the parties are married and that the sponsor was unable to attend the marriage interviews because she could not afford to take time off work. The judge did not find the appellant to be a credible witness and, given the sponsor's failure to attend the appeal hearing, it was inevitable that her untested written evidence could attract only limited weight.

d. The first pages of the appellant's and sponsor's Monzo bank statements appear to have been included in order to show that they were residing at the same address in London. Beyond that, they offered little obvious support for the appellant's case. More complete versions of the appellant's bank statements were already contained within the respondent's bundle. As the judge noted, those statements in fact undermined the appellant's account because they evidenced regular payments, until at least April 2023, to Winner Adumaza, the woman identified as his fiancée in his 2022 visa application.

20. As already explained, the judge was aware of the appellant's bundle and expressly referred to it in his decision. The fact that he did not specifically discuss the individual documents contained within it is unsurprising, given that they added little of substance to the appellant's case. There was certainly nothing within the bundle capable of displacing the significance of the sponsor's failure to attend the appeal hearing or of addressing the obvious credibility issues in the appellant's evidence concerning why he described Winner Adumaza as his fiancée in a visa application made in 2022 – some two years after he claimed to have married the sponsor – or why he continued to make payments to Ms Adumaza in 2023.

21. For those reasons, I am satisfied that the judge's findings were reasonably open to him on the evidence and that the reasons he gave were both adequate and proportionate. The ground of appeal falls well short of establishing that the judge made a material error of law. In my judgment, this was not a case in which permission to appeal should have been granted.

Notice of Decision

The First-tier Tribunal did not make an error of law, and its decision shall stand.

The appeal is dismissed.

M R Hoffman

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

13th July 2026