ET (Albania) v the Secretary of State for the Home Department

The case for the applicant was and is that she was a trafficked woman. She has young children, but nonetheless was trafficked into Albania, I think from Greece, and effectively escaped to this country; that she was suffering from PTSD as a result of the trafficking and she and the children would be substantially prejudiced if returned to Albania.

The case depends, to a significant extent, almost entirely, on the determination of the First Tier Tribunal because the Upper Tribunal refused permission to appeal in a very brief determination dated 18 August 2014.

There are, it seems to me, effectively two principal grounds of appeal put forward. It is accepted that this application raises no important point, indeed any point of practice or principle, but it is said that there is a compelling reason for permission to appeal to be given by reason of the combination of the merits of the grounds and the consequences to the applicant and her family if the application fails and she is duly returned to Albania. The two grounds are first that the First Tier Tribunal erred in refusing to adjourn an application for an adjournment having been made on the basis that it was appropriate to obtain further medical evidence. There was a short letter from Lewisham Primary Care Psychological Therapy Service before the First Tier Tribunal. It said relatively little other than that the applicant was not appropriate for their service; she had more complex needs which should be addressed by her GP and a psychiatrist.

There has now been produced medical evidence to the effect that the applicant is suffering from PTSD. It is a report of Dr. McClellan, described as a highly specialist clinical psychologist, dated 17 December 2014. It was not before the First Tier Tribunal (obviously) nor was it before the other tribunal. It is said that there was no time to obtain such a report before the hearing before the First Tier Tribunal, which made its decision in June by 22 August 2014. When the Upper Tribunal made its decision there was still no further medical evidence and the Upper Tribunal therefore made its decision upholding the decision to refuse an adjournment simply on the basis of the same brief medical evidence and a contention that there was a potentiality for more important evidence.

It seems to me that on the material that was before the First Tier Tribunal Judge, it is not surprising that she refused an adjournment simply because there was nothing before her to indicate that there was anything significant that might result. Moreover, she (the First Tier Tribunal Judge) decided this case on her assessment of the credibility of the claimant and it is far from obvious how the medical report that was produced would have affected her determination of the credibility of the applicant. It is an impressive medical report, but it assumes the truth of the contentions, the factual contentions about trafficking put forward by the applicant. If those are rejected then the basis of the report really goes. So, the question is whether the First Tier Tribunal was fair in refusing an adjournment on the material before it, but since this is an application for permission to appeal against the decision of the Upper Tribunal, whether it erred in any way in refusing to interfere with the decision of the First Tier Tribunal, in my judgment, the answer is no. So, quite apart from whether there are compelling grounds, this is not a case where I would say there was a real prospect of success on that point.

What I feel of greater concern about is the way that the First Tier Tribunal dealt with the findings of credibility; and it is right to say that what the First Tier Tribunal did was to analyse aspects of the story put forward by the applicant and reach a view as to their credibility based on the considerations that were available to the First Tier Tribunal and without any specific reference to the Country Guidance case. Clearly, the First Tier Tribunal was aware of the Country Guidance case of A & B and Trafficked Women (Albania) and although insofar as that case affects the dangers to a trafficked woman who is returned to Albania and what the circumstances are like in Albania, most of the case does not affect the credibility or otherwise of someone who asserts that she was a trafficked woman. The First Tier Tribunal gave relatively detailed grounds for rejecting the credibility of the applicant, mainly by taking the various assertions and saying that they were simply not credible. They included the payment of €500, the way that the children were dealt with and her ability to go about without any supervision from the man she was saying effectively was her pimp or trafficker.

In a sense, this is a reasons attack on the decision. It seems to me that findings of credibility, which of course have to be backed by specific reason, are among the most difficult for an applicant seeking to appeal. They are a cross between an analysis of the content of a story and the manner in which the evidence is given. Here, the manner in which the evidence is given is not relied on in any way by the First Tier Tribunal and so I am left with the contention that the failure to point out that there were aspects of the story which were not inconsistent with trafficking marred the decision of the First Tier Tribunal.

It seems to me that although there are passages from the First Tier Tribunal which can be properly criticised, when one looks at the accumulation of reasons given, this is not a case where I find that the merits are such as to amount to a compelling reason for permission to appeal to be given. In those circumstances, in agreement with Briggs LJ, I find this is not a case for permission to appeal.