Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-003414
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/01344/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

7th September 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LAY

Between

SP (Nepal)
(Anonymity Order made)
Appellant
v

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
Appellant: Mr M West, Counsel instructed by Gordon & Thompson Solicitors
Respondent: Ms A Ahmed, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 1 September 2026

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the anonymity of the Appellant is maintained.

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 a 35-year-old Nepalese national who entered the UK as a visitor on 20 October 2023. He claimed asylum on 3 November 2023 on the basis of a claimed fear of persecution in his home country owing to his political affiliation and an arrest warrant he says was issued on 27 October 2023. He also claimed to have been detained by the authorities in May 2022.
2. The Respondent refused his claim in a decision dated 19 March 2026. He exercised his statutory right of appeal, which was dismissed by First-tier Judge Barker in a determination promulgated on 8 May 2026, following a hearing in Birmingham on 6 May 2026.
3. The Appellant sought permission to appeal on four grounds. Permission was granted on all grounds by First-tier Judge Lawrence on 11 June 2026. Ground 1 argued that the FTJ had erred in consideration of the evidence relating to the arrest warrant said to have been issued in Nepal and served (at some stage) on the Appellant’s wife.
4. Ground 2 criticised the FTJ for relying on country material that had not been in evidence – Mr West withdrew that ground at the outset of the error of law hearing and so I will say no more about it except to note that it is sufficiently clear that the FTJ was taken to the Respondent’s Country Policy Information Note on Nepal and was entitled to consider it.
5. Ground 3 related to the FTJ reaching an adverse view on the credibility of the Appellant’s contention that he was detained in 2022 for a period of time, with a focus on an apparent inconsistency when giving oral evidence about the length of detention/date of release.
6. It was acknowledged by Mr West that Ground 4 was parasitic on either Ground 1 or 3, namely that if the assessment of credibility by the FTJ had gone awry, then – in turn – the evaluation of the “reliability” of various documents submitted as part of the appeal would also be tainted, per Tanveer Ahmed, credibility of an Appellant in general being one facet of reliability of documentary evidence (both provenance and content).
7. In accordance with Directions, there was a Composite Bundle (226 pages) served ahead of the error of law hearing – page references in this determination are in the form [CB: XX], denoting [Composite Bundle: PDF page finder]. There was a Rule 24 reply dated 10 July 2026. It transpired at the hearing that the Appellant’s solicitors had not placed the correct or comprehensive Appellant’s Bundle into the Composite Bundle. I was therefore taken by Mr West to items in “Bundle A”, which I had sourced myself from Judicial Case Manager during the hearing and about which I informed the parties.
8. I heard oral submissions from Mr West and then submissions by Ms Ahmed.
Conclusions
9. The determination under challenge examined multiple ways in which the Appellant’s written and oral evidence had proved confusing and shifting. There are several adverse findings. The grounds fundamentally focus on only two elements of a comprehensive assessment of credibility.
10. I have had regard to Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464 [at 2], which affirmed that a Court or Tribunal considering error of law should be circumspect in interfering with primary fact-finding conducted below:
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 that it would have reached a different conclusion. What matters is whether the decision under appeal is one that no reasonable judge could have reached.
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 judgment 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 judgment). 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 insupportable.
vi) Reasons for judgment will always be capable of having been better expressed. An appeal court should not subject a judgment to narrow textual analysis. Nor should it be picked over or construed as though it was a piece of legislation or a contract.
11. I dismiss Ground 1. Mr West submitted that the FTJ had not applied “anxious scrutiny” to the evidence of the arrest warrant dated 27 October 2024. In my view the FTJ has explained at length at paragraphs 21 to 24 exactly why the Tribunal had been unable to accept the subjective account.
12. For the avoidance of doubt, there was no dispute from the Respondent that the excerpt of the oral evidence from the FT hearing transcribed at paragraph 11 of the grounds [CB: 15] was accurate. It was the Appellant’s case that at the FT hearing he had said in evidence that his wife “received the documents from the local police but the paper you are talking abut on page 41, she only received it later”. The document referred to as being “on page 41” is an arrest warrant dated 27 October 2023 (the internal pagination relates to Bundle A in the FTT). The document said to have been received on 27 October 2023 has not been identified or clarified and Mr West could not assist when I asked him about it.
13. In any event, according to Mr West’s note, the HOPO went on to ask “when was it your wife actually received this document [ie. the arrest warrant]?” The answer given was “I don’t know the exact date, maybe 5-6 days, so maybe around 4th or 5th November”.
14. Mr West argued that “5 or 6 days” after 27 October 2024 was consistent with the Appellant’s wife receiving the document, and informing the Appellant about it, prior to his asylum claim on 3 November 2024. The “maybe around 4th or 5th November” comment was simply an error in calculating dates.
15. I accept the narrow point that the Appellant may have misspoken in stating “4th or 5th November” and that one valid component of his answer was an estimation of “5 or 6 days” after 27 October 2024. The sixth day would be 2 November 2024.
16. Contrary to the grounds and the oral submissions of Mr West, however, I find that the FTJ’s finding on this issue were open to him on the evidence and, in any event, paragraph 21 cannot be read in isolation from paragraphs 22, 23, 24 & 25; nor can the FTJ’s comments about timing be divorced from a range of other issues which had plainly caused confusion and legitimate concern to the Tribunal. The FTJ was not irrational to find “the two accounts [of receipt/knowledge] different”, comparing the oral and written evidence; the FTJ was also entitled to deem the Appellant’s evidence about the timing of his knowledge of the arrest warrant to be unsatisfactory – the essential context for the concern was the Appellant’s own witness statement which suggested that the arrest warrant itself was within the knowledge or possession of the Appellant’s wife as of 27 October 2023 and that the oral evidence then shifted under cross-examination.
17. The FTJ analysed the Appellant’s account in his witness statement at paragraph 7 [CB: 37] that “my fear resumed after I left Nepal and received a message from my wife on 27th October 2023, informing me of a new arrest warrant issued against me”. In his screening interview the Appellant said [CB: 196] that “after my arrival in the UK, on 27/20/2023 police went to my house to arrest me, my wife told that they have a warrant to arrest me…”
18. The Appellant gave an oral answer, as recorded by Counsel for the Appellant, that his wife received some kind of document on 27 October 2023; “on the 27th she received documents from the local police…”. It remained unclear to the FTJ (and indeed to the Upper Tribunal now) what was received on that date. The FTJ went on at paragraph 22 to express how, after repeated questioning, no clarity was forthcoming: “the Appellant repeatedly conflated the contents of this document with another…”
19. It was of concern to the FTJ that “however, in his oral evidence, when asked about the provenance of the document which the appellant claims is an arrest order, the appellant confirmed that the order was issued on 27 October 2023, as stated in the document, but said that as he lived in a remote area, it would have taken the authorities a few days for his wife to receive it on that date but in fact received it on 4 or 5 November 2024 and then told him about it”.
20. This loops back to the FTJ’s confusion over the “other document” apparently received on 27 October 2023; it also relates to the Appellant’s evidence over what the Appellant knew at the time of his asylum interview. The FTJ has recorded that “it remained unclear at the conclusion of the appellant’s oral evidence whether he was in fact aware of the arrest order when he was interviewed, and said that his wife had not told him about it until after the asylum interview…”
21. The FTJ then moves on at paragraph 23 to other elements of inconsistency and confusion in the account, including the basis for the arrest warrant and the previous accounts the Appellant had given for why his arrest was being pursued (including caste). In his asylum interview, at Question 26 [CB: 213], there is a suggestion that he has not seen the arrest warrant itself at that stage, an issue which led to further examination in the hearing. This culminates in the FTJ concluding that “I find it incredible that by the time of his asylum interview in February 2025, the appellant would not have seen the arrest order he relies on, which according to that document, was issued on 27 October 2023 and provided to his wife at some point between then and 5 November 2023, depending on the varying accounts.”
22. Paragraphs 21 to 24 must reasonably be read together. It is the issue of the date of the arrest warrant, the timing of the Appellant’s knowledge of it (including up to 2025) and related matters connected to the claim for asylum a fortnight after arrival in the UK on a visit visa which, in the FTJ’s view, are of “significance” and which had not been adequately explained. The FTJ’s observation at paragraph 21 - that the Appellant’s answer about when his wife received the arrest warrant and then, in turn, when she told him about it – was a finding open to the Judge on the evidence as presented (the Appellant had himself said in part, after all: “maybe 4 or 5 November 2023” in conjunction with equivocation) and, moreover, formed part of this general picture of confusion – a confusion flowing from the Appellant’s own written and oral evidence. It was for the Appellant to satisfy the FTJ on balance of the past account. He did not do so. It is not the for the Upper Tribunal to intervene if the FTJ has heard all the oral evidence and has not erred materially.
23. In the Rule 24 relied upon by the Respondent, it stated: “The appellant focuses on paragraph [21] and submits that insufficient weight was given to his oral evidence that his wife received the arrest warrant approximately 5–6 days after it was issued. However, paragraph [21] must be read in the context of the wider findings. The FtTJ's concern was not limited to the precise calculation of dates. The FtTJ identified inconsistencies between the appellant's witness statement, screening interview, asylum interview and oral evidence regarding when he became aware of the alleged arrest warrant and the circumstances in which that information was communicated to him. Read fairly and as a whole, paragraph [21] discloses a finding open to the FtTJ on the evidence. In any event, any arguable error regarding the precise chronology would not be material given the extensive adverse credibility findings elsewhere in the determination.”
24. I agree with those paragraphs of the Rule 24. Even if I am wrong, and the FTJ is said to have erred in deeming the Appellant’s evidence to have been that his wife “in fact received [the warrant] on 4 or 5 November” (paragraph 21), as distinct from the Appellant’s use of “maybe”, or if this was not an accurate construal of a part of the Appellant’s oral evidence nor a legitimate finding on the evidence nor technically inconsistent with claiming asylum on 3 November 2023 after being told about the arrest warrant, the sheer range and degree of the adverse findings relevant to the very same issue (the warrant, knowledge, contents, provenance), and other issues (credibility and consistency), fully articulated in the determination, nonetheless make this error immaterial when considered in the round. Applying the admittedly low threshold for materiality, it is simply not capable of having led to a different outcome in this appeal.
25. I also dismiss Ground 2. The FTJ was entitled to conclude that there was lack of clarity over length of detention and treat it as adverse. In the appeal hearing the Appellant is noted by the FTJ to have said expressly that he was released on 24 May 2022. The FTJ, at paragraph 28 of the determination, takes the view that “the appellant confirmed that he had been arrested on 8 May 2022 and held in detention for 15 days. This must mean that he was released on 22 May 2022 [emphasis added] … [this is] another inconsistency, as his release from detention 15 days after his arrest on 8 May would in fact mean that he was indeed released on 22 May and not 24 May…”
26. The Appellant’s account in his substantive interview, at Question 19, was that having been detained for political reasons on 8 May 2022, he was released “after 15 days” [CB: 212]. In his witness statement, at paragraph 5 [CB: 36], he stated that he was “detained for 15 days” and sought medical assistance from a hospital on 26 May 2022 [CB: 36]. In the “Rajdhani News” article relied upon by the Appellant [CB: 53], it states that the six individuals were detained “for 15 days”. A police report dated 8 May 2022 states that the individuals would be detained “for 15 days” [CB: 63].
27. There is a further document, which was contained in the First-tier Tribunal bundle (“Bundle A”), at page 39, which is presented as a “bail notice” dated 24 May 2022, stating that the Appellant was released from detention on 24 May 2022. That document was not in the Composite Bundle and was not mentioned by Mr West in the error of law hearing.
28. Either way, the FTJ’s issue at paragraph 28 of the determination was that 15 days from Sunday 8 May 2022 would be 22 May 2022. That is mathematically correct on one view. Being generous, it might also be reasonable to treat 9 May 2022 as the first full day of detention – but then counting from there the 15th day would still land on 23 May 2022 rather than 24 May 2022. Mr West submitted in the grounds, at paragraph 30, that “being released 15 full days after 8 May 2023 [sic] is entirely consistent with saying he was released on 24 May 2023 [sic]”. I do not agree, as a matter of logic.
29. Mr West acknowledged that for Ground 4 to succeed, he needed to establish an error via either Ground 1 or 3. He has not done so. I therefore dismiss Ground 4. The reliability of the documents was rationally evaluated by reference to the credibility assessment at paragraphs 19 to 28, per Tanveer Ahmed.
Notice of Decision
The determination of the First-tier Tribunal is upheld and the Appellant’s appeal is dismissed.

Taimour Lay

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

2 September 2026