Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-002078
First-tier Tribunal No: HU/60299/2024
LH/00131/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 2nd of July 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HIRST

Between

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
and

GEOVANNIE FERNANDEZ VIRGO
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Terrell, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Ms Glass, counsel instructed by Okafor and Co Solicitors

Heard at Field House on 24 June 2026

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The Secretary of State (‘Appellant’) appeals from the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 24 September 2026 allowing the Respondent’s appeal on human rights grounds.
2. For the reasons set out below, I have decided that the First-tier Tribunal’s decision did not involve a material error of law. I therefore decline to set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s decision and dismiss the Secretary of State’s appeal.
Background
3. The Respondent is a citizen of Jamaica. On 22 April 1998 he sought leave to enter the UK as a visiting musician. He was arrested at the airport and on 21 December 1998 was convicted of being concerned in importing a Class A drug. Following an appeal against conviction and sentence he was retried and on 14 February 2000 he was reconvicted and sentenced to 3 years and 10 months’ imprisonment. On 6 April 2000, having requested to return, he was deported from the UK to Jamaica.
4. On 10 October 2001 the Respondent returned to the UK using a false identity. He was granted leave to enter as a visitor. On 31 August 2004 the Respondent was convicted under his false identity of supplying Class A drugs and on 24 September 2004 he was sentenced to 48 months’ imprisonment, subsequently varied to 42 months. He was released in January 2006 but his licence was revoked in February 2006 due to a breach of conditions. The Respondent remained at large.
5. On 10 November 2020 the Respondent sought leave to remain under his true identity, on the basis that he was the father of a British child. He was subsequently located by the Home Office and on 10 July 2021 was convicted of remaining unlawfully at large and sentenced to 28 days’ imprisonment.
6. On 13 August 2024 the Appellant made a decision to make a deportation order. The Respondent appealed and his appeal came before the First-tier Tribunal on 9 September 2025. The First-tier Tribunal found that the Respondent could not meet Exception 1 in s117C(4) Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 because he had not been lawfully resident in the UK for most of his life and because there were not very serious obstacles to his reintegration in Jamaica. However, the Tribunal found that Exception 2 in s117C(5) NIAA 2002 was met, because the Respondent’s deportation would have unduly harsh effects on his 5-year-old child (‘G’), who had been diagnosed with autism and had developmental and care needs. The First-tier Tribunal therefore allowed the appeal.
7. The Secretary of State appealed. Permission to appeal was granted by the First-tier Tribunal on 21 April 2026.
Grounds of appeal
8. The Appellant’s grounds of appeal criticise the approach of the First-tier Tribunal judge in a number of respects, grouped into two main headings:
a. Ground 1 (adequacy of reasons): The First-tier Tribunal failed to address apparent contradictions in the evidence or to give adequate reasons for its findings on material matters;
b. Ground 2 (mistake of fact/failure to give reasons): The First-tier Tribunal wrongly stated that the Respondent had not committed a further offence since 2004, which together with the lack of supporting evidence of social integration was material to the finding that the Respondent was socially and culturally integrated in the UK.
Discussion and decision
Ground 1
9. When a court or tribunal is required to determine whether a decision made under the Immigration Acts breaches a person’s right to respect for his private or family life under Article 8 ECHR, it must apply the provisions of s117A-D Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. When assessing whether an interference with a person’s Article 8 rights is justified under Article 8(2), the court or tribunal must in particular have regard to the considerations in s117B, and in cases concerning deportation of foreign criminals, to the considerations in s117C.
10. Section 117C(3) provides that, where a foreign criminal has not been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of four years or more, the public interest requires his deportation unless either or both of the exceptions in s117C(4) or (5) applies.
11. Exception 1 in s117C(4) applies where (a) the foreign criminal has been lawfully resident in the UK for most of his life, (b) he is socially and culturally integrated in the UK, and (c) there would be very significant obstacles to his integration into the country to which it is proposed to deport him.
12. Exception 2 in s117C(5) applies inter alia where the foreign criminal has a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with a qualifying child and the effect of his deportation on the child would be unduly harsh.
13. The First-tier Tribunal in this appeal found that Exception 1 was not met in the Respondent’s case, and this appeal is therefore focused on the Tribunal’s approach to Exception 2. There is no challenge to the First-tier Tribunal’s finding that the Respondent had a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with G; the only issue is whether the First-tier Tribunal erred in law in finding that the Respondent's deportation would have an unduly harsh effect on G.
14. On behalf of the Appellant, Mr Terrell’s oral submissions on Ground 1 focused on paragraph 1(f) of the grounds of appeal and the judge’s reasoning at §§85-91 of the decision. Mr Terrell emphasised that the Respondent’s case was not that the judge’s conclusion that Exception 2 was met was irrational, but rather that the reasons given in the decision were inadequate to explain the judge’s conclusion. He submitted, in summary, that the judge was required to consider, and make findings about, (i) the factual consequences of the Respondent’s deportation for G, and (ii) whether those consequences were unduly harsh, bearing in mind the elevated threshold outlined in HA (Iraq) v SSHD [2022] at §41. The judge had not set out her reasoning fully on either aspect.
15. For the Respondent, Ms Glass submitted that the judge was not required to set out every step in her reasoning, and her conclusion at §91 that the consequences of deportation on G would be unduly harsh had to be read in light of the previous paragraphs and her consideration of the evidence, including in particular G’s Education Health and Care Plan (‘EHCP’) and supporting evidence.
16. The First-tier Tribunal is obliged to give adequate reasons for its decision. What is required, as summarised by Beatson LJ in Haleemudeen v SSHD [2014] EWCA Civ 558 at §35, is that
“…the reasons must give sufficient detail to show the parties and the appellate tribunal or reviewing court the principles upon which the lower tribunal has acted, and the reasons that led it to its decision, so that they are able to understand why it reached its decision. The reasons need not be elaborate, and need not deal with every argument presented.”
17. However, a First-tier Tribunal judge is not required to set out every step in her reasoning fully or at all, and the Upper Tribunal as an appellate court should exercise judicial restraint when considering the adequacy of the reasons which are given: HA (Iraq) v SSHD [2022] UKSC 22, [2022] 1 WLR 3784 at §72.
18. In this case, the First-tier Tribunal judge correctly directed herself (at §40-41) as to the ‘unduly harsh’ test by reference to HA (Iraq) and expressly referred to the elevated threshold required. She then considered the oral and written evidence before her. At §70 she recorded G’s mother (‘F’) as giving “credible evidence” that the Respondent was very much involved in G’s life, and that although he did not live close to them he collected G from school once or twice a week, spent time with him and was “a very significant support” to her in caring for G, particularly in attending school, educational and health meetings which they were required to attend. At §84, the judge found that it would be unduly harsh for G to return to Jamaica with the Respondent (the ‘go’ scenario), in material part due to G’s diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and his developmental and care needs. She referred to the EHCP and noted that G would require “a great deal of one to one support to assist with his development and education, both in the home and at school…”
19. The judge then went on at §85-91 to consider the alternative scenario if the Respondent were deported and G remained with F in the UK (the ‘stay’ scenario). At §85 the judge recorded F’s evidence that she suffered from depression and relied on the Respondent to support her in managing all the educational and health meetings in respect of G’s education and development. The judge stated (§85) that “I found [F] a witness of truth and accept her evidence”. At §86-87, the judge referred again to the EHCP, recording that G had delayed speech and language skills and was not able to communicate his needs, and recorded the Respondent’s evidence that because of G’s limited communication skills he would not be able to use video calls to communicate with him. At §88 the judge again recorded F’s evidence about the support she received from the Respondent and her dependence on that support. At §89 the judge summarised a letter of support from G’s primary school which stated “support from both parents is essential to ensure [G’s] ongoing educational and emotional development. At §90, the judge referred to a letter from G’s speech therapist which confirmed that the Respondent was “very much part of [G’s] life and a very significant support for [F]”. The judge then concluded at §91:
“Having considered the evidence relating to [G], I am satisfied that it will be unduly harsh for him, if the [Respondent] is deported and for that reason the [Respondent] meets the family life exception (exception 2).”
20. It is important to note that the Appellant does not challenge the judge’s conclusion that Exception 2 applied as one which was irrational or unsupported by the evidence before the First-tier Tribunal. On the contrary: Mr Terrell expressly recognised in his submissions that the judge’s conclusion was one which was open to her on the evidence before the First-tier Tribunal. Nor does the Appellant challenge the accuracy of the judge’s summary of F’s evidence or G’s developmental and care needs.
21. I have considered the judge’s reasoning at §§85-91 in the context of the decision as a whole. The judge expressly directed herself by reference to HA (Iraq) and the elevated threshold required. Having heard oral evidence from F and the Respondent, it was open to her to accept F’s evidence as credible and truthful; that evidence was supported by the other documentary evidence to which the judge referred. On a fair reading of the decision as a whole, and §§85-91 in particular, it is apparent that the judge accepted the evidence that the Respondent's deportation would prevent him from being actively involved in G’s care or able to communicate with G, and that the removal of his support would also impair F’s ability to provide G with proper care. As the Appellant recognises, it was plainly open to the judge to conclude that those circumstances met the elevated threshold required for Exception 2. Whilst the judge’s reasons could have been more fully expressed, I conclude that the reasoning in the decision was adequate to explain the conclusion that Exception 2 applied in the circumstances of the Respondent’s case.
22. For the sake of completeness, I address paragraphs 1(b)-(e) of the grounds of appeal, which criticised a number of other aspects of the judge’s reasoning. Mr Terrell did not actively pursue those points in his oral submissions, and in my view he was right to do so. In summary:
a. Paragraph 1(b) contended that the judge had failed to consider an implied separation between the Respondent and his current partner at the time of G’s conception, which infected her conclusion that the relationship between them was genuine and subsisting. That was plainly not material to the outcome of the appeal given that the judge concluded that Exception 2 did not apply in respect of the Respondent's current partner.
b. Paragraph 1(c) asserted that there was a contradiction between the evidence of the Respondent, his current partner and F as to the Respondent's involvement in G’s life. However, as Mr Terrell fairly recognised, there was in reality no inconsistency, as the Respondent's involvement in his daughter’s life was not inconsistent with his spending time with G several times a week.
c. Paragraph 1(d) asserted that the judge had not given proper scrutiny to the witness evidence because the reasons given for finding the witnesses credible were not adequate. However, both credibility and the weight to be given to the witnesses’ evidence were quintessentially matters for the judge, and there was no error of law in her consideration of their evidence.
d. Paragraph 1(e) alleged that because F’s maiden name was the same as the Respondent's current partner, they were apparently related, which was a material consideration overlooked by the judge. As the grounds of appeal note, there was no evidence before the judge to support this and it was not a point put to the witnesses in cross-examination; it is not open to the Appellant to raise it now on an entirely speculative basis.
None of those points, taken individually or cumulatively, discloses any error of law in the reasoning or conclusions of the First-tier Tribunal.
Ground 2
23. The Appellant’s ground 2 criticise the First-tier Tribunal’s approach to the question of whether the Respondent was ‘socially and culturally integrated in the United Kingdom’ for the purposes of Exception 1 in s117C(4) NIAA 2002. The Appellant submits that the First-tier Tribunal judge incorrectly stated that the Respondent had not offended since 2004, and that that error, compounded by the lack of supporting evidence from friends or associates of the Respondent, infected the Tribunal’s finding that the Respondent was socially and culturally integrated in the UK.
24. The First-tier Tribunal did make a factual error in stating that the Respondent had not offended since 2004, because he had remained unlawfully at large following the revocation of his criminal licence in 2006, for which he was convicted in July 2021. However, as the Tribunal found that the Respondent could not in any event meet Exception 1 because there were not very significant obstacles to his reintegration on return to Jamaica, any error relating to the First-tier Tribunal’s conclusion that the Respondent was socially and culturally integrated was not material to the outcome of the appeal.

Conclusion
25. For the reasons set out above I conclude that there was no error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. The judge correctly directed herself and applied relevant law to the facts and evidence before her, and her reasons were adequate to explain her conclusions.
26. I therefore decline to set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal, and dismiss the Secretary of State’s appeal.

Notice of Decision

The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of a material error of law and I decline to set it aside.
The Secretary of State’s appeal is dismissed.

L Hirst

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

25 June 2026