Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-001962
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/67455/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 2nd of October 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN

Between

EN
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms H Masih of Counsel, instructed by Malik & Malik Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr A Sheikh, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 31 July 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 appeals against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FtT) dated 18 December 2025 dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s decision dated 14 June 2024 to refuse his protection and human rights claim.

Background

2. The appellant’s claim in a nutshell is that he met a well connected and wealthy man, P, who offered him a work opportunity in Belgium which instead turned out to be forced labour growing cannabis. He was sold to another individual, B, and trafficked to the United Kingdom, where he escaped. Threats have been made to the appellant in Albania via his family. The police have failed to act on the family’s complaints, citing a lack of evidence.

3. The respondent did not accept the factual basis of the appellant's claim but maintained in the alternative that he would have sufficiency of protection or could relocate internally within Albania.

4. The FtT accepted the appellant’s account of events leading to his being trafficked to the United Kingdom, including that P had connections with the local police and that the appellant's family had been visited and threatened on a number of occasions. However, the FtT did not accept that there was continued interest in the appellant. Even if there was continued interest, the FtT found that the appellant would have sufficiency of protection, or could safely and reasonably relocate internally.

The Parties’ Cases

5. The appellant was given permission to appeal on all pleaded grounds by the Upper Tribunal in a decision dated 18 May 2026. Those grounds can be summarised thus. It was not reasonably and or fairly open to the FtT to find that the appellant’s evidence regarding threats was significantly inconsistent and/or that finding was inadequately reasoned. The FtT'’s finding that the appellant’s parents would have tried to move had there been threats was inadequately reasoned. Similarly inadequately reasoned was the FtT’s finding that there was no reliable evidence that P had influence outside his local area, as was its finding that the appellant could reasonably relocate within Albania.

6. Whilst the respondent did not submit a rule 24 response, she nevertheless opposes the appeal.

7. The representatives each made oral submissions, in the appellants case supplementing his grounds of appeal. Whilst I refer below only to such matters as necessary to understand my decision, I took the written and oral submissions and the evidence to which they referred into account in their entirety.

Consideration

8. The FtT accepted the appellant's account of the events leading to his trafficking, finding that his evidence of the same was reliable and consistent [21]. In particular, the FtT found at [35]:

‘I find, taking into account the evidence as a whole, that the appellant was recruited by P while he was working at the café. I find that he was trafficked to Belgium by P where he was forced to work in a cannabis house without pay. I find that he was stabbed when he resisted. I accept his evidence that he was not allowed to leave the house unescorted and was under the control of armed guards in Belgium. I accept that he was then sold to B, and trafficked to the United Kingdom. He escaped from his traffickers when he arrived in the United Kingdom.’

at [44]:

‘…men may have visited the appellant’s home looking for him, and made threats…’

at [45]:

‘…on the balance of probabilities…P is part of a network of contacts outside of Albania, in Belgium and in the United Kingdom, which is how he was able to traffic the appellant from Albania…’

and at [47]:

‘…I accept that the appellant saw P meeting with local police officers…’

9. It is also tolerably clear that the FtT accepted that the appellant’s father had reported P to the police and people were sent to the father's home to intimidate him [24].

10. The FtT found, however, that there was ‘no reliable evidence that P has any ongoing interest in the appellant’ [45]. That conclusion was reached having considered the evidence on the point at [36] to [44]. The FtT’s reasoning can be distilled to the following.

11. The appellant claimed in oral evidence that threats were being made continuously, most recently a month earlier, to his parents, and that the threats were to harm him alone. However, the appellant had said in his witness statement dated 19 February 2025, ‘After arriving in the UK, my parents received threats multiple times from P. P went to my family house and threatened to kill me and them.’ The appellant had not made an updated statement since then. The appellant's sister did not mention in her statement dated 9 April 2025 any threats to their parents and had not attended the hearing to give evidence. There was no statement from the appellant’s parents. It was the appellant’s oral evidence that the threats were just to him.

12. The FtT considered it a ‘significant inconsistency’ that the appellant’s written evidence was that the threats were made to harm both him and his parents, whereas his oral evidence was that the threats were to harm him alone. The FtT also considered that the written evidence suggested threats taking place entirely in the past, as opposed to his claim in oral evidence that they were continuing. The FtT further found that the parents would have tried to move home if their lives were being threatened, notwithstanding having found it plausible that they could not afford to move.

13. I agree that this reasoning is problematic. There is no apparent consideration given to whether the appellant’s oral evidence as to the target of the threats was truly inconsistent, given that he appeared in cross-examination to have been asked about threats made after the date of his last statement. The FtT appears to hold against the appellant a lack of corroborative evidence from the appellant’s family members, notwithstanding that it accepted in its entirety the appellant's account of events involving him personally. Further, and perhaps most importantly, it is impossible to reconcile the FtT’s acceptance as plausible that the appellant’s parents could not afford to move with finding within the same sentence that they would have tried nevertheless. Either their inability to afford the move is an explanation for why they remained where they were or it is not.

14. In the circumstances, I am persuaded that the FTTS conclusions on the objective risk facing the appellant on return was deficient in reasons and or were unreasonable on the evidence.

15. The respondent argues that, even if the FtT’s findings on risk were unsafe, it nevertheless made safe findings on sufficiency of protection and/or internal relocation such that any risk analysis errors were immaterial. Regrettably, I find that those alternative findings also involved errors of law for the following reasons.

16. Firstly, the FtT accepts that P had meetings with local police officers (which the appellant’s evidence reported occurring over the course of a year or more), and that the appellant’s parents were harassed after they had reported P to the police. The FtT also accepts that the police took no further action on those reports, albeit accepting that the reason was a lack of evidence. The FtT does not adequately explain why the appellant would have sufficiency of protection in his home area in such circumstances.

17. As for the question of whether the appellant would be able to relocate internally, the FtT accepted that P was a member of a criminal network stretching as far as Belgium and the United Kingdom. The FtT does not explain what further evidence the appellant could reasonably have been expected to provide of P’s likely reach within Albania. Certainly, the FtT fails to give adequate reasons for concluding that there was no real risk of P becoming aware of the appellant's return to a place in Albania outside his home area, such as to subject the appellant to a real risk of future harm.

18. It follows that the decision of the FtT contained material errors of law, such that no finding a fact can safely be preserved. The parties agreed the appropriate disposal in such circumstances would be remittal to the FtT.

Notice of Decision

1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error on a point of law and is set aside with no findings preserved.
2. The appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be reheard by another judge.

Sean O’Brien

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

29 September 2026