United Kingdom Immigration and Asylum (AIT/IAC) Unreported Judgments

 

Upper Tribunal

(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: Aa/09401/2015

 

 

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

 

 

Heard at Field House	Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 5 July 2018	On 13 September 2018

 

 

Before

 

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE GLEESON

 

 

Between

 

E A

[ ANONYMITY ORDER made ]

Appellant

and

 

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT

Respondent

 

 

Representation:

For the appellant: Ms Helen Foot, Counsel instructed by Wilson Solicitors LLP

For the respondent: Mr Paul Duffy, a Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

Anonymity . The First-tier Tribunal made no anonymity order, despite the Presidential Guidance given by the President of the FtTIAC in 2011 that all asylum appeals should be anonymised at case creation. Pursuant to Rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, I make an anonymity order in this appeal. The appellant will be referred to in these proceedings only as E A. Unless the Upper Tribunal or a Court directs otherwise, no report of these proceedings or any form of publication thereof shall identify the original appellant, whether directly or indirectly. This order applies to, amongst others, all parties. Any failure to comply with this order could give rise to contempt of court proceedings.

1.              The appellant appeals with permission against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal on 11 June 2016 to refuse her international protection under the Refugee Convention, humanitarian protection, or leave to remain in the United Kingdom on human rights grounds.

2.              The appellant is a citizen of Ghana born in June 1961 and is now 57 years old. The basis of her claim is that she was trafficked to the United Kingdom and fears return to Ghana because she may attract adverse attention from her former traffickers, or be re-trafficked.

Procedural history

3.              The appeal has had a chequered history. It was heard in the First-tier Tribunal in March 2016 by First-tier Tribunal Judge Rahman, but his decision was set aside. It was next heard in January 2017 by First-tier Tribunal Judge Abebrese, but that decision also was set aside.

4.              On 5 March 2018, the appeal came before First-tier Tribunal Judge Talbot, with no findings of fact or credibility preserved. Judge Talbot dismissed the appeal on all grounds.

5.              The appellant appealed for the third time to the Upper Tribunal, and permission was granted by on the basis that it was arguable that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in substituting its own view of the plausibility of the appellant's claim for that of an expert witness (Ms Elizabeth Flint), and in detailing, but failing to engage with, material mental health evidence from Dr Brock Chisholm and Dr Sarah Whittaker-Howe, when considering the appeal under Articles 3 and 8 ECHR.

6.              The appellant contends that the evidence regarding her mental health impacts on the very significant obstacles criterion in paragraph 276ADE (1)(vi) of the Immigration Rules HC 395 (as amended). A witness statement dated 15 March 2016 by Rachel Lau, a senior caseworker with the appellant's solicitors, described extreme difficulty in obtaining instructions from the appellant.

7.              The medical evidence relied upon consists of two expert reports, the first a joint report by Dr Brock Chisholm BSc (Hons), MSc, DClinPsych, CPsychol, AFBPsS, a consultant clinical psychologist, and Dr Sarah Whittaker-Howe BSc (Hons) DClinPsych, a clinical psychologist who describes herself as specialising in psychological redress from crimes against humanity. The second report is by Dr Chisholm alone. There is also an email from Dr Chisholm.

8.              Ms Elizabeth Flint's report relates to the appellant's claim to have been trafficked, and the risk of re-trafficking, were she to be returned to Ghana now. The bundle included correspondence from the appellant's general medical practitioner and a letter from Solace Women's Aid.

Background

9.              In her witness statement dated 15 March 2016, the applicant said that her late father worked as a driver in Accra, Ghana, and her mother as a housewife, who also baked and made dresses. The appellant left school at 16, completed her nurse's training over 2 years in eastern Ghana, then returned home and worked in a hospital in Accra, while continuing to study and obtaining a nursing degree. The appellant was working until just before she left Ghana to come to the United Kingdom. She had 4 children in Ghana (all now adults) and her widowed mother still lives there too.

10.          The appellant was approached by the husband of one of her oldest friends, who worked at the Ghanaian High Commission in London. He needed a domestic worker for his home in London, and the appellant agreed to travel back to London and take up the post. She believed that while working for him in London, she could send money back to her sister and her children from her wages, and that in due course her two younger children might be able to join her here (which never happened).

11.          The appellant's employer made the visa application and obtained a passport for the appellant. In early 2003, the appellant received her visa: she used it in November 2003, travelling to the United Kingdom with her employer's wife and children. The applicant says the conditions under which she worked were terrible, and that she was not paid any money at all until 2008. She said friends helped her and gave her food. She was not allowed to leave the house, except to take the children to school: but on more than one occasion, she was locked out of the house at night when her employer had visitors, and was raped, once or several times, in 2006, by someone not her employer, while locked out of the house in that way.

12.          The employer told the appellant she had to work for him for 5 years (until 2008). She was permitted to go back to Ghana in 2007 for a few weeks over Christmas, to see her son and her mother, having obtained the money to do so from a friend. She returned to the United Kingdom and continued working for her employer, but she also got a job at a care home, to enable her to send money home and pay back the friend who had lent her money for her trip back to Ghana.

13.          In 2008, the appellant moved out of her employer's house, but continued cleaning for him for a time. In December 2008, the appellant's employer said he was returning to Ghana, and gave her £300 for her wages for the past 5 years. The appellant then consulted a solicitor, who said she should make an application for indefinite leave to remain. The application failed and the Home Office retained the appellant's passport.

14.          The appellant's account is that the solicitor did not mention the possibility of an asylum claim, and she knew nothing about refugee status. She went on working in the care home for another 5 years. On 19 October 2013, the appellant was arrested and made a trafficking claim. She spoke to her son in Ghana, who said that her employer knew what she was saying about him and that 'he was going to get her for this'. Her employer was a powerful man and she believed he could do it. The appellant then made an asylum claim, which was unsuccessful.

15.          The appellant claimed that she would be at risk on return to Ghana as the employer, a powerful man, would find and punish her. The appellant's children would not be able to support her: the eldest daughter had married a vicar and moved away, her son had left home and got engaged to a Muslim girl, and her mother was old and needed help. The appellant said she could not go to her children for support because she had failed them; the rest of her family had stopped talking to her, saying that she had neglected her children and her mother.

Conclusive grounds decision

16.          Following a referral to the Competent Authority through the National Referral Mechanism, the Competent Authority made a negative conclusive grounds decision. The appellant's account of trafficking was rejected as being internally inconsistent, and in particular:

(a)           despite claiming that she knew the employer well in Ghana, the appellant was unable to provide further information about him;

(b)           her numerous applications for further leave to remain did not mention any mis-treatment by the employer until 2013, when she was refused indefinite leave to remain after having been caught working illegally;

(c)            the appellant had paid for and passed a 'Life in the United Kingdom' test and been able to borrow and repay the cost of an air fare for a holiday in Ghana in December 2007, which did not support her evidence that she was receiving no pay;

(d)          Her employer's letters supporting her applications referred to his having made payments to her;

(e)           Her employer wrote letters to assist the applicant in obtaining additional work in the United Kingdom to boost her pay; and

(f)             Despite the alleged death threats, the appellant claimed to have been invited to the employer's daughter's wedding, which she said she attended.

17.          The Competent Authority concluded that the appellant had not been trafficked as alleged.

Medical evidence

18.          The joint report of Dr Chisholm and Dr Whittaker-Howe dated March 4 2016 recorded the history given by the appellant. At [12], Dr Chisholm and Dr Whittaker-Howe recorded that the appellant's thought processes were generally disorganised, with long answers that did not always relate to the question. Dr Chisholm and Dr Whittaker-Howe considered that the appellant's account was fragmented, disorganised and jumbled, such that there was a high possibility that some of the specific details provided might be inaccurate.

19.          They had been unable to ascertain any reliable information on the appellant's mental health status before her arrest in October 2013 for working at the care home: it seemed that she deteriorated rapidly thereafter. Nor had they been able to elicit many details around the reported trauma and in particular, the alleged incidents of rape.

20.          The appellant told the doctors that she had four adult children living in Ghana, the first three from her relationship with one former partner, and another with a second former partner. The appellant had worked as a nurse in Ghana from 1974 to 2003 when she moved to the United Kingdom. She knew her employer's wife before she was married and was offered a job as housemaid by the husband, which she accepted, leaving her children with a family friend in Ghana. She then accompanied her employer's wife and their three children to London, her employer having already travelled there. The report describes the appellant's account of her deteriorating relationship with the employer's family, beginning two months after her arrival in the United Kingdom.

21.          The appellant said that she began working at the care home in about 2004, with a letter from the employer explaining that he was not paying her enough and she could seek additional employment. She worked 2-3 days a month on bank shifts at the care home. She also joined a local Church in 2005 or 2006, attending its Sunday services and women's group.

22.          The appellant told them that she was experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as reliving her claimed experiences. She wanted to die, but denied any intention or plan and had made no suicide attempts. Her faith would not permit it. If the psychotic element in her presentation worsened, they considered it possible that the appellant might lose the control she currently had over her suicidal impulse. They recommended specialist access to psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, and a trial of a low dose of anti-psychotic medication. The latter does not seem to have occurred.

23.          On 14 March 2016, Dr Chisholm emailed Rachel Lau in the following terms:

"You have asked me to define [the appellant's] risk of suicide if she is detained. Such judgments are never straightforward. When considering the protective factors of religion, the risk is medium. If the detention produces a sharp decline in her mental state, worsening PTSD and triggering psychosis, then the risk is high. There is a very high risk that her mental health will be severely harmed through worsening of PTSD to a previous rape and increasing the severity of her psychosis if she were detained."

24.          On 20 December 2016, Dr Chisholm provided a further medical report dealing with the rape allegation. He considered the appellant's clinical presentation to be entirely consistent with the allegation that she had been raped.

25.          At Dr Chisholm's reassessment meeting with the appellant on 14 December 2016, her behaviour confirmed his original opinion. She was well kempt and made good eye contact, walking with a cane due to a recent fall. She commented on his aura; struggled to stay on topic, and often pursued delusional sounding topics such as 'how Queen Elizabeth II was pursued by the Scottish sometime in World War II', fled to Africa to avoid beheading and was saved in Ghana by the appellant's father who built her a secret railway at midnight to the Whitehouse (not the American one), and that this was why she herself was named Elizabeth.

26.          The appellant felt personally persecuted by the respondent in a psychotic-like manner; she had very poor mental health with psychotic depression or symptoms, depending on the analysis. She could hear people laughing at her and saying that she was useless, largely when she was alone: it seemed like they came from another land. She could not concentrate, and reported thematic nightmares related to her depressive mood, including nightmares of being raped. She had developed alopecia. She was conflicted about killing herself because her religion forbad it.

27.          Dr Chisholm did not offer any conclusion as to whether the rape allegation was true, or a psychotic hallucination. He said that whether the appellant had been raped was a matter for the Tribunal. The rape allegation could be a delusion. Although this was a possibility, Dr Chisholm did not consider it the most likely. He had reconceptualised his assessment of the appellant's mental health difficulties to accommodate the possibility that she had not been raped. His opinion (see [41]) was that she was severely depressed with psychotic symptoms associated with rape.

28.          As far as the psychosis was concerned, Dr Chisholm was satisfied that it existed; the appellant described less well-known symptoms and he did not think her psychotic symptoms, including auditory and visual hallucinations, were invented. The appellant's mental health had declined sharply after her arrest on 19 October 2013 in the United Kingdom, and her detention of 13 hours at that time. The appellant had no current plan or imminent intent to kill herself but given her psychotic presentation, she was more prone to an impulsive act, particularly if the symptoms worsened (see [48]).

29.          On 26 June 2017, the appellant's general medical practitioner, Dr A K Balabhadra, confirmed that the appellant had an undisplaced fracture of the lower end of her fibula on the left ankle (she had suffered a fall), bilateral significant osteoarthritis of the knees, scarring from female pattern alopecia, and hearing loss in her left ear, for which she used a hearing aid. The appellant was attending Solace for Women on account of her past history of trauma and abuse; she was taking amitriptyline for low mood, and she had asthma and used inhalers. The appellant had constant knee and ankle swelling and pains which impacted on her daily functioning, and low mood; both conditions exacerbated her asthma.

30.          On 4 August 2017, Solace Women's Aid, a charity which worked with women who had experienced domestic and sexual abuse, made available to the appellant 16 sessions of counselling and access to therapeutic groups, although there was a waiting list for delivery of the counselling. On 13 October 2017, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey NHS Trust's Complex Care Team prepared a complex PTSD stream report. The report noted that the appellant had been referred to Solace. The account given was that the appellant's brother was a preacher and had lost contact with the rest of the family. The appellant married age 18 and put herself through university, studying nursing while bringing up her first three children. The marriage broke down following her husband's affair; the appellant had another relationship with a man who turned out to be married, and her youngest child was born out of that relationship.

31.          The appellant said she had been raped in the United Kingdom when locked out of her employer's house, sleeping in a park. In 2007, she had returned to Ghana with the employer's family to see the children. In 2008, the employer abandoned his family in London and the appellant was homeless, but she was able to find work in a care home between 2009 and 2013. Her situation improved, and she had a boyfriend with whom it seems she was living, but the appellant was raped again after he locked her out.

32.          The appellant was arrested in 2013 for working illegally, although she had a National Insurance number. The appellant found that very upsetting. She filed an asylum claim. Her treatment plan was to include post-traumatic stress disorder education and symptom management and a review to access readiness for trauma-focused therapy. The plan would be kept under review. She was placed on the waiting list (around 6 months) for post-traumatic stress disorder education and symptom management in a group format.

Ms Flint's evidence on trafficking

33.          Elizabeth Flint describes herself as an Acute Poppy Senior Support Worker, with several years' experience of identifying and supporting female victims of trafficking, a Masters' Degree in Gender and International Development and a Diploma Certificate in Refugee Law. The Poppy Project is part of Eaves, the United Kingdom's government-funded support service for female victims of trafficking.

34.          Ms Flint was provided with all of the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal decisions in this appeal, the appellant's March 2016 and December 2016 witness statements, and a draft witness statement prepared in December 2014, together with the medical report of Dr Chisholm and Dr Whittaker-Howe in March 2016 and the medico legal report of Dr Chisholm in December 2016, the Solace Women's Aid letter and a report by St Ann's Hospital dated 13 October 2017, bank statements, four letters from the employer, and the appellant's interview record.

35.          Ms Flint did not meet the appellant: her report is prepared from the documents with which the appellant's representative provided her, and some additional information which seems to have been given to her by the appellant's representatives, not in a witness statement. Strikingly, given the connection between Eaves/The Poppy Project and the respondent's duties as Competent Authority in trafficking cases, the appellant's solicitors did not provide her either with the Reasonable Grounds or Conclusive Grounds decisions by the respondent as Competent Authority.

36.          At [308] Ms Flint set out her duties to the Tribunal, but she did not confine herself in her report to matters within her knowledge and expertise, as required by the Ikarian Reefer guidance (see also National Justice CIA Naviera SA v Prudential Assurance Company Limited [1993] 2 Lloyds Reports 68 at [81]-[82] in the judgment of Mr Justice Cresswell, later approved by the Court of Appeal).

37.          Ms Flint's report consists mostly of quotations from the other evidence. After setting out the medical evidence, Ms Flint said that she was instructed by the appellant's legal representative that the appellant had received some bruises when the employer and his wife had grabbed her by the arm, but no serious or lasting injuries. There is no medical or photographic evidence to support this allegation, and nothing from the appellant herself about this.

38.          At [84], [119] and [121] Ms Flint relied upon 'instructions from [the appellant's] legal representative that postdate my letter of instruction' that the employer regularly threatened the appellant, but that he also gave her a letter confirming that she was in employment, which enabled the appellant to open a bank account, and that in Ghana, when the employer's wife stayed with the appellant, the appellant treated her as her guest, the appellant doing all the housework and the employer's wife doing nothing to help.

39.          Ms Flint's opinion was highly speculative in relation to the evidence about the employer's state of mind (see [59] and [74]-[77] in particular). The appellant's account was accepted at face value. At [120], the witness says that the appellant trusted the employer when she accepted the job, but that his 'betrayal of trust appears to have taken time for [the appellant] to recognise'.

40.          At [133], Ms Flint noted the appellant's period of leave in Ghana in 2007, stating that:

"This type of grant of leave is quite rare in my experience of trafficking cases but not unheard of. I have come across similar cases before where a victim is kept in domestic servitude in the United Kingdom but allowed to return briefly to their country of origin and returns to their exploiter on return for fear of the consequences of not [returning] or because they do not feel that they have an alternative. ..."

41.          In contrast, at [158] Ms Flint said that the appellant's experience of trafficking 'for the purposes of domestic servitude with elements of forced labour is a near textbook fit of the pen portrait of victims of domestic servitude as set out by the Home Office in their recent research report A typology of modern slavery offences in the United Kingdom'. At [195] Ms Flint expressed her opinion that the appellant's experience of domestic servitude with elements of forced labour 'is highly consistent with my experience of other cases of domestic servitude here in the United Kingdom and of trafficked victims' experience of domestic servitude by diplomats more widely.

42.          At [220], Ms Flint found the appellant's account highly plausible and considered her highly vulnerable to exploitation. At [252], after considering the question of barriers to disclosure at some length, Ms Flint stated that she could not rule out the possibility that there were further disclosures yet to come in the appellant's case.

43.          At [260], Ms Flint considered that the appellant was at high risk of re-trafficking both in the United Kingdom and Ghana, because of her vulnerability. At [283] she explained that this was because the appellant would not have accommodation, the means and resources to provide for herself and her family, a job, stable physical and mental health, or access to family members and a safe support network and that, without robust family support, the appellant would be vulnerable to homelessness and destitution.

First-tier Tribunal decision

44.          The First-tier Tribunal set out the history recorded above, together with the psychiatric evidence of Dr Chisholm and Dr Whittaker-Howe, and the submissions made. After setting out the burden and standard of proof for international protection claims, the First-tier Judge erroneously observed, erroneously, that the conclusive grounds decision of the Competent Authority was not binding upon him.

45.          The First-tier Judge then took into account section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004, but it is not clear that he considered that section 8 had decisive weight and I am therefore untroubled about that.

46.          The Judge noted the evidence of psychotic delusions and cautioned himself to take great care in making negative credibility findings: he should not dismiss the appellant's evidence wholesale but nor could he accept her as a wholly reliable historian of past events.

47.          The appellant's account of her enslavement by her employer was inconsistent, for the reasons set out at [22]; it was difficult to evaluate the rape allegations (not by her employer), but the Judge accepted it as reasonably likely that she had been taken advantage of sexually in circumstances which might amount to rape, particularly as the appellant had experienced periods of homelessness and mental health difficulties in the United Kingdom.

48.          Dealing finally with the risk on return, the appellant had asserted at interview that she feared only her former employer, as she was a former victim of trafficking. He was not satisfied that the appellant, who now would be aware of the risks, was reasonably likely to be retrafficked. She no longer needed to support her growing children: the youngest one was now an adult. The appellant's age and state of health would make her much less attractive to traffickers than in the past. Even if the appellant's sjv fear of her former employer was genuine, the Judge did not accept that it was objectively well founded.

49.          The Judge accepted Dr Chisholm's opinion that the appellant had post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder, as well as asthma, alopecia, osteoarthritis and an undisplaced facture of her left ankle. The Judge applied MM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 279 and GS (India) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 40, and made reference to Paposhvili v. Belgium - 41738/10 (Judgment (Merits and Just Satisfaction) : Court (Grand Chamber)) [2016] ECHR 1113 at [183].

50.          Recognising that the Article 3 ECHR protection required a very high threshold, the Judge noted that the appellant had not apparently ever been an in-patient with her mental health difficulties and seemed capable of basic self-care, consulting her doctor regularly on a number of minor matters. She had no current imminent suicidal intent, nor was it suggested that she had ever self-harmed.

51.          The evidence before the First-tier Tribunal indicated that although the standard of provision might be lower, common forms of psychotropic medication were widely available in Ghana and the appellant had four adult children in Ghana who could help her resettle, while in the United Kingdom she had nobody. He did not consider that returning the appellant to Ghana would breach the United Kingdom's international obligations under Articles 3 or 8 ECHR. Nor had the appellant demonstrated very significant obstacles to reintegration as paragraph 276ADE(vi) required.

52.          The appellant had been in the United Kingdom either precariously or unlawfully through and little weight could be given to her private life developed here during that time, having regard to section 117B(4) and (5) of the 2002 Act.

53.          The appeal was dismissed on all grounds.

Permission to appeal

54.          Permission to appeal was granted on the basis that the Tribunal had erred in substituting its own view of the plausibility of the appellant's claim for that of the expert, and in failing to engage with the material evidence concerning the appellant's mental health problems, with relation to Articles 3 and 8 ECHR.

Rule 2 4 Reply

55.          The respondent filed no Rule 24 Reply.

56.          That is the basis on which this appeal came before the Upper Tribunal.

Upper Tribunal hearing

57.          For the applicant, Ms Foot referred to the Conclusive Grounds decision and the guidance given by the Court of Appeal in The Secretary of State for the Home Department v MS (Pakistan) [2018] EWCA Civ 594. The Tribunal could go behind the decision of the Competent Authority only if that decision was perverse or irrational. Ms Foot argued that the acceptance by the Competent Authority of the employer's assertion that he pd the applicant and wished her well was arguably perverse, that the standard of proof used in conclusive grounds decisions was higher than that for international protection, and that there had been fresh evidence post-dating the conclusive grounds decision.

58.          It might no longer be the case that the employer would wish to harm or traffic the appellant, but she could still be at risk from others as yet unknown. There was no direct evidence from the appellant's children that they would support her, and her own evidence was that they would not. The appellant had post-traumatic stress disorder and any support she received from family members might not necessarily alleviate her problems. More weight should have been attached to the evidence from Drs Chisholm and Whittaker as to the treatment the appellant needed to recover; the appellant had not been in a position to give live evidence because she was too unwell to do so. That was not a medical opinion: rather, it had been Ms Foot's own assessment before the First-tier Tribunal and that of her solicitor that the appellant would be too distressed to give evidence. The appellant seemed to be getting worse. Ms Foot produced an email saying that if detained, the appellant might become a suicide risk.

59.          The appellant would rely on AM (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1123 as to the proper approach to vulnerable witnesses.

60.          Ms Foot accepted that Ms Flint's expert report had been prepared without her seeing either the reasonable grounds or conclusive grounds decisions, nor the First-tier Tribunal decisions.

61.          Ms Foot asked me to set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and allow the appeal.

62.          For the respondent, Mr Duffy stated that the Judge had made an adequately reasoned credibility finding, which was neither perverse nor Wednesbury unreasonable and should be upheld. The medical evidence did not say that there was any suicide risk on return. The appellant had been arrested working in a care home, without leave, which was why she had been detained. The Article 3 suicide risk was not made out on the evidence and feel well short of the Paposhvili extension of the N and D deathbed test. The appellant had no strong private life in the United Kingdom; that did not form part of the very significant obstacles on which the appellant relied.

63.          There was no material error of law in the First-tier Tribunal's decision and the appeal should be dismissed.

Discussion

64.          I have had regard to the grounds of appeal and the submissions. I consider what weight the First-tier Judge should have given to the evidence of Ms Flint. The question of the weight to be given to expert reports is a matter for the factfinding Judge. Given the very limited information Ms Flint had before her, and the speculative and internally inconsistent nature of the opinions expressed in the report, it was unarguably open to the First-tier Judge to place very little weight on that evidence.

65.          The medical evidence is carefully and rationally considered. The evidence was that the appellant, by reason of her post-traumatic stress disorder and psychotic illness, was not a reliable historian. Various bad things might have happened, but it was just impossible to be certain.

66.          The Judge took account of that evidence and where there was a conflict, he preferred the evidence of other witnesses than the appellant. That is not surprising: the appellant's own Counsel and solicitor considered her unfit to testify (although there was no medical evidence to that effect) and the evidence of her doctors was that the appellant's delusions were such that they could not, in effect, be sure that anything she thought happened was true.

67.          The same was true of the Judge's assessment of the relationship between the appellant, her former employer, and his wife. There was no corroborative evidence of the hostility alleged or of his locking her out in circumstances in which, the appellant claimed, other people raped her. On the contrary, the Judge was entitled to accept the evidence that the employer had paid the appellant, that she had been content to return to Ghana with his family for a month's holiday and then come back with them to the United Kingdom, and that he assisted her to obtain her (illegal) second job in the care home.

68.          There was simply no evidence that the former employer, who left his wife and family in the United Kingdom to return to Ghana, bore the appellant any ill will at all still less wished to re-traffic her. Nor was there any reliable country evidence to the effect that this appellant was likely to be re-trafficked by others, at her present age and state of health.

69.          There was medical treatment available in Ghana for psychosis, and the appellant had a large extended family there. The First-tier Judge did not err either in fact or in law in rejecting the appellant's evidence that they all hated her and wanted nothing to do with her: there was nothing to corroborate her evidence, and given its overall unreliability, that conclusion was open to the Judge.

70.          The First-tier Judge's decision is carefully, properly, and intelligibly reasoned and more than adequate to support his conclusions.

71.          This appeal is therefore dismissed.

DECISION

72.          For the foregoing reasons, my decision is as follows:

The making of the previous decision involved the making of no error on a point of law

I do not set aside the decision but order that it shall stand.

 

Date: 10 September 2018 Signed Judith AJC Gleeson Upper Tribunal Judge Gleeson