Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-001891
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/00641/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

26th October 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BULPITT

Between

ST
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr M Hosseinzadeh, United Immigration and Visa Services Limited
For the Respondent: Mr A Sansom, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 17 September 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. The appellant is twenty years old and a citizen of Iran. On 15 November 2024 he entered the United Kingdom without permission and immediately sought asylum. He was interviewed about his claim on 11 January 2025 and raised protection and human rights claims to remain in the United Kingdom. The respondent refused those claims in a decision dated 13 February 2025 and the appellant appealed against that decision to the First-tier Tribunal.
2. The appellant’s appeal was heard by First-tier Tribunal Judge S T Fox (the Judge) on 13 November 2025. Two months later the Judge promulgated a decision dismissing the appellant's appeal. The appellant now appeals, with permission to this Tribunal against the Judge’s decision. Pursuant to section 12(1) of the Tribunals Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, the question for me to determine is whether the decision of the Judge involved a material error of law?
The appellant’s claim and the respondent’s decision
3. The appellant says that he is of Kurdish ethnicity and that when in Iran he worked with his father and others from his village as a Kolbar, illegally transporting goods, including alcohol, on foot across the border between Iran and Iraq. On one occasion in October 2024 he was undertaking such work with his father and others when they were ambushed by Iranian border forces. The appellant and others in his group tried to flee, and the Iranian officers started shooting. The appellant escaped but he did not see his father again. The appellant went to his maternal uncle’s house and then hid in a neighbours barn. He later discovered that his father had been captured, his home had been raided and that the Iranian authorities had a warrant for his arrest. Fearing for his safety, the appellant’s uncle arranged for him to leave Iran. He travelled hidden in lorries through Europe to France where he was placed into a boat which took him to the United Kingdom. On arrival he said that he feared execution by the Iranian authorities because of his illegal smuggling.
4. The respondent determined that the appellant’s claimed fear of persecution was not for a reason recognised in the Refugee Convention. The respondent also concluded that the appellant’s account was not true saying that it lacked detail and was undermined by his failure to claim asylum in safe countries on his way to the United Kingdom. The respondent found that the appellant had not come to the adverse attention of Iranian authorities and that the appellant would not be at risk for reason of his Kurdish ethnicity alone. The respondent also found that the appellant did not meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules for being granted leave to remain on the basis of his private life and that there were no exceptional circumstances which meant that he should be granted such leave. The protection and human rights claims were therefore refused.
The appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
5. The appellant appealed against the respondent’s decision and in anticipation of his appeal being heard he adduced a bundle of evidence, which included a witness statement and evidence of what was said to be his Facebook account. In his witness statement the appellant said that while in the United Kingdom he had attended five demonstrations against the Iranian government and that he had posted material opposing them on his Facebook account. He said he now additionally feared the Iranian authorities having expressed his opposition to them in this way. The respondent consented to this new matter being considered by the Tribunal despite the fact it had not been considered by the respondent. The appeal hearing took place in person. The appellant gave oral evidence and both parties made submissions, after which the Judge reserved his decision.
6. The Judge found that the appellant’s claim to fear persecution for reason of his political opinion was one which was recognised by the Refugee Convention. The Judge found however that the appellant “was not a good witness as to truth” and that his account of events in Iran could not be relied upon (([33]). The Judge found that there was no risk of the appellant’s attendance at demonstrations or the posts on his Facebook account coming to the attention of the Iranian authorities ([45] and [48]), that his claimed political opinion was not genuine and that the appellant would delete his social media accounts prior to any enforced return to Iran ([49]). In those circumstances the Judge concluded that the appellant would not be at risk from the Iranian authorities on his return to that country ([50]).
The appeal to this Tribunal
7. The appellant was granted permission to appeal against the Judge’s decision by a Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge on four grounds. In grounds one two and three it is asserted that the Judge failed to consider material evidence from the appellant when finding that his account of events in Iran was not true. It is also suggested within ground three that the Judge failed to give adequate reasons for his decision. In ground four it is asserted that the judge made an error of fact about the appellant claiming to have hidden at his uncle’s address when the appellant in fact said that he hid in a barn of his uncle’s neighbour.
8. The respondent did not provide any written response to the appellant’s notice and grounds of appeal, but Mr Sansom confirmed at the hearing before me that the appeal is opposed. I heard submissions from Mr Hooseinzadeh and from Mr Sansom. I mean no disrespect by not setting out those submissions in detail here but I will instead refer to them to explain my decision in the following section.
Analysis
9. As is apparent from the preceding paragraphs, there is no suggestion that the Judge misdirected himself about the applicable law when considering the appellant’s protection claim. Neither could there be. At [10] – [12] the Judge gave himself appropriate self-directions concerning the questions to be resolved in order to determine the appeal on asylum and humanitarian protection grounds and there is no reason to infer that the Judge then failed to follow those directions. The grounds of appeal all instead complain about the findings of fact that were made by the Judge and in particular his finding that the appellant’s account about events in Iran was not likely to be true.
10. Before assessing the assertion in grounds one, two and three that the Judge failed to consider material evidence before reaching this adverse conclusion about the credibility of the appellant’s account, I remind myself of the guidance provided by Lewison LJ on the approach to be taken by an appeal court to an appeal such as this one where the Judge’s factual findings are challenged at [2] of Volpi v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464:
2 The appeal is therefore an appeal on a pure question of fact. The approach of an appeal court to that kind of appeal is a well-trodden path. It is unnecessary to refer in any detail to the many cases that have discussed it; But the following principles are well settled:
i. an appeal court should not interfere with the trial judge's conclusions on primary facts unless it is satisfied that he was plainly wrong.
ii. The adverb plainly does not refer to the degree of confidence felt by the appeal court that it would not have reached the same conclusion as the trial judge. It does not matter, with whatever degree of certainty, that the appeal court considers it would have reached a different conclusion.
iii. An appeal court is bound, unless there is compelling reason to the contrary, to assume that the trial judge has taken the whole of the evidence into his consideration. The mere fact that a judge does not mention a specific piece of evidence does not mean that he overlooked it.
iv. The validity of the findings of fact made by a trial judge is not aptly tested by considering whether the judgement presents a balanced account of the evidence. The trial judge must of course consider all the material evidence (although it need not all be discussed in his judgement). The weight which he gives to it is however pre-eminently a matter for him.
v. An appeal court can therefore set aside a judgment on the basis that the judge failed to give the evidence a balanced consideration only if the judge’s conclusion was rationally unsupportable.
vi. Reasons for a judgement will always be capable of having been better expressed. An appeal court should not subject a judgement to narrow textual analysis. Nor should it be picked over or construed as though it was a piece of legislation or a contract.
11. It follows therefore that a compelling reason must be identified to rebut the assumption that the Judge took he whole of the evidence into his consideration before concluding that the appellant’s account of events in Iran was not in fact true. In this case the “whole of the evidence” about those events was actually very limited, consisting only of the appellant’s account in his interview, four paragraphs of his witness statement and his answers to questions in cross examination during the hearing before the Judge. Given it’s brevity the likelihood of the Judge overlooking material evidence is small.
12. Although the asserted error identified in ground one is “failure to consider material evidence regarding potential information from other detainees”, the ground fails to identify what material evidence the Judge is said to have overlooked. Mr Hooseinzadeh suggested in his submissions that the Judge overlooked the possibility that other Kolbars detained by the Iranian authorities gave the authorities information about the appellant. As Mr Sansom identified in his submissions however, there was simply no evidence to this effect before the Judge. The height of the submission made in ground one is that the Judge could have drawn a different inference from the evidence (that other detainees provided the Iranian authorities with the appellant’s detail) than the inference the Judge in fact drew (that the appellant’s account that he fears the Iranian authorities is not in fact true). That submission is not in reality a complaint that the Judge failed to consider evidence but a disagreement with the inference drawn by the Judge from the evidence that was before him. The inference drawn by the Judge cannot properly be described as one that is rationally unsupportable and ground one provides no legitimate basis for interfering with it.
13. Similarly ground two, despite being entitled “failure to consider material evidence regarding the time between the ambush and visit to A’s home”, is in fact a submission about the inference drawn by the Judge on consideration of the evidence and does not identify any evidence that the Judge has failed to consider. In fact there was no direct evidence about the amount of time that passed between the asserted ambush of the Kolbars by the Iranian authorities and the search of the appellant’s home at which he claimed his mother saw a warrant for his arrest. At [22] the Judge refers to a period of less than two hours, which appears to be the Judge’s inference drawn from the evidence that the appellant did give about running from the Iranian authorities, hiding in the forest, going to his maternal uncle house, hiding in a neighbour’s barn and being told by his uncle what happened when the uncle visited the appellant’s home. It is plain therefore that the Judge did consider the material evidence given by the appellant when considering how long the events took. In his submissions Mr Hooseinzadeh argued that the Judge’s assessment of this evidence was wrong and that an alternative inference could be drawn from the appellant’s evidence. It may well be the case that another Judge considering the appellant’s evidence may have drawn different inferences from the appellant’s evidence and ultimately reached a different conclusion. That is not however the test for an error of law as Lewison LJ made clear in the passage quoted above. Overall, the Judge’s assessment that the timeline of events described by the appellant was not reliable, was a rational one i.e. it was a conclusion that was within the range of conclusions that a Judge could reasonably reach. The fact that the appellant contends for a different conclusion and even that a different Judge might have reached a different conclusion, does not alter the fact that this Judge reached a rational conclusion. Ground two therefore provides no legitimate basis for interfering with the Judge’s decision.
14. Ground three does identify evidence which it is said the Judge failed to consider. It asserts that when he assessed the likelihood of the appellant’s father telling the Iranian authorities about his son’s involvement in the smuggling which led to the father’s arrest, the Judge failed to consider the appellant’s answers to interview questions 83 and 84. In those answers the appellant suggested that his father may have provided the authorities his details under torture to save his life and not be killed. The assertion that the Judge failed to consider these answers is however flatly contradicted by [23] of he Judge’s decision, in which the Judge clearly has regard to this evidence stating: “The Appellant speculates that his father was tortured. He claims that his father was prepared to put his own son’s life in jeopardy by identifying him to the authorities, so as to save his own”
15. The reality is therefore, that rather than identifying material evidence that the Judge failed to consider, grounds one, two and three amount to disagreements with the Judge’s assessment of the evidence that was provided and attempts to re-argue the appellant’s case by proposing alterative conclusions which were available to the Judge on the evidence. The hearing before the Judge was not however a dress rehearsal but the first and last night of the show - see [114] of another judgment by Lewison LJ in Fage United Kingdom Ltd v Chobani United Kingdom Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 5 which was quoted in an immigration context in Lowe v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 62. As Lewison LJ made clear in that paragraph of his judgment, it is the primary function of a first instance judge to hear the evidence and find facts. That Judge is in the best position to make those findings having seen the appellant give evidence and following a hearing in which both parties had a fair opportunity to advance evidence and make submissions. That is what the Judge did in this case and in my judgment the Judge’s assessment having heard the evidence, that the appellant’s account of events in Iran was not likely to be true, was a rational assessment of the evidence presented.
16. Rather than asserting the Judge failed to consider evidence when assessing the appellant’s account, ground four complains that the Judge made a mistake of fact about what the appellant said. Mr Hosseinzadeh submitted that the Judge was mistaken when he said at [26] and repeated at [27] that the appellant’s account was that he hid from the Iranian authorities for two to three days in his uncle’s house, when the appellant’s evidence was in fact that during that time he was hiding in a barn belonging to his uncle’s neighbour. Whilst describing the appellant’s evidence as “nuanced” Mr Sansom conceded that the Judge may have erred at [26] and [27] of his decision. This concession is well made as the appellant’s interview answer (Q10) that he hid in the barn of his uncle’s neighbour was acknowledged by the interviewer at Q79 and repeated in the appellant’s witness statement. There is nothing in the Judge’s decision to suggest that the appellant’s evidence on the point changed during the hearing and in the circumstances I am satisfied that the Judge was mistaken when he referred at [26] and [27] to the appellant claiming to have hid in his uncle’s house.
17. As Sedley LJ identified at [17] of his judgment in Krasniqi v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 391, such a mistake of fact as that made by the Judge will only amount to an error of law where it is both erroneous and capable of having affected the outcome. I agree with Mr Sansom’s submission that the error made by the Judge about where the appellant claimed to have been hiding for 2-3 days was not capable of affecting the outcome in this case. I reach that conclusion because the Judge gave a number of reasons for why he did not accept that the appellant’s account was true which are unaffected by whether the appellant was hiding in his uncles house or a neighbour’s barn. One of those reasons given by the Judge was the implausibility of the appellant’s uncle being able to go to the raided house and speak to the appellant’s mother and report back to the appellant in hiding in such a short time frame and without challenge by the authorities. That reasoning remains whether the appellant was hiding in a neighbours barn or his uncles house. Similarly the Judge did not consider it realistic that the appellant’s uncle was able to fund and arrange the appellant’s travel from Iran to the United Kingdom in the short period of time available to him if the appellant’s account were true. That reasoning again applies regardless of where the appellant was hiding. Whilst therefore the Judge was wrong to say that the appellant claimed to hid in his uncle’s house, that was not in my judgment an error which amounted to a material error of law.
18. Ground three also included an unspecified assertion of a further material error of law “because the Judge’s reasoning is inadequate” which although imprecisely pleaded must be addressed. Mr Hosseinzadeh’s made submissions in line with this complaint during the hearing. Some of the criticism of the Judge’s written reasons have some apparent merit. The meaning of the suggestion at [22] that on the appellant’s account the “haste” of the Iranian authorities “may only be described as indecent” is obscure. Likewise, it is difficult to understand what was meant when, assessing the appellant’s account of the arrangements for his departure from Iran, the Judge said that “I also observe that there was an indecent amount of haste attached to this element of the account and little or no detail provided to lend a gloss of plausibility”.
19. I remind myself however, that to establish an error of law based on inadequate reasoning, one must venture beyond literary criticism (see [26] of the judgment of Floyd LJ in UT (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1095). Ultimately, I am satisfied that any ambiguity caused by the Judge’s writing style is clarified when the decision is read as a whole. In his decision the Judge explains why he is not persuaded that the appellant’s account of events in Iran is likely to be true by reference to improbabilities and vagueness in the appellant’s account. That explanation is sufficient to enable the appellant and this tribunal to understand why the Judge reached the decision he did. It was therefore adequate.
20. For all these reasons the appellant has not established that the Judge’s decision involved the making of an error of law. Accordingly the Judge’s decision shall stand.
Notice of Decision
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed.
The decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge S T Fox did not involve an error of law and shall stand.

Luke Bulpitt
Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
20 October 2026