SW v SSWP (SPC)

A tribunal must evaluate credibility findings fairly and give adequate reasons for rejecting material evidence. Before placing substantial weight on an apparent inconsistency, it should examine the circumstances in which the allegedly inconsistent account was produced, including a claimant’s illiteracy and reliance on assistance.

Documents obtained abroad must not be presumed false merely because they are non-contemporaneous or because false documents may be obtainable in the issuing country. The proper question is what weight they bear when assessed with all the evidence and the claimant’s general credibility. A party alleging fraud must prove it on the balance of probabilities.

The appellant claimed state pension credit on the basis that she had been born on 23 May 1950. The Secretary of State relied on Ethiopian and British passports, and earlier benefit claims, recording a birth date of 1 January 1963.

The First-tier Tribunal dismissed her appeal, finding her account not credible and treating her Ethiopian birth and baptismal certificates as unreliable or likely falsified. It relied on an apparent inconsistency between earlier letters and her later account of why the 1963 date had appeared in her passport.

The Upper Tribunal considered whether those credibility and documentary-evidence findings involved an error of law and, if so, whether it should remake the decision.

1. Appeal allowed. The First-tier Tribunal’s decision involved an error of law. It was set aside and remade by the Upper Tribunal.

2. The First-tier Tribunal had not properly evaluated the apparent inconsistency between the earlier letters and the appellant’s later account. It did not sufficiently investigate how the letters had been prepared, whether their contents had been explained to an illiterate appellant, or the significance of the absence of a signature or mark on one letter. It therefore gave excessive weight to the inconsistency without adequately examining its possible explanation.

3. The tribunal also erred in its treatment of the Ethiopian documents. It failed to address the possibility that the certificate’s issue date was expressed in the Ethiopian calendar. More generally, it adopted, or came close to adopting, an impermissible presumption that documents were false because false documents could be obtained in Ethiopia. Documentary weight should instead be assessed in the light of the evidence as a whole and general credibility.

4. The adverse credibility finding was inadequately reasoned. Descriptions of evidence as hesitant or unconvincing required sufficient explanation, including examples where necessary to make the finding intelligible.

5. On remaking, the judge found the appellant’s explanation for the passport date plausible. The birth and baptismal certificates were given no weight, owing to insufficient evidence about the underlying record systems, but the medical evidence was given substantial weight. On the balance of probabilities, the appellant was born on 23 May 1950 and was not disentitled to pension credit on age grounds.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): Allowed the appeal, set aside the First-tier Tribunal decision for error of law, and remade it.
• First-tier Tribunal: On 11 June 2014, dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the refusal of state pension credit, finding that she was born on 1 January 1963.