F, R (On the Application Of) v Manchester City Council

A local authority may owe a duty to reassess an age determination where new information means that a significantly different conclusion might be reached and the person may be notably older or younger than initially assessed. Whether that threshold is met is reviewable on ordinary public law principles. The authority must consider the evidence individually and cumulatively, but it may assess reliability, inconsistencies and the circumstances in which documents were obtained. A court-document recording a date of birth need not be accepted where the evidence concerning its procurement and evidential basis is materially uncertain. A challenge to the factual accuracy of an age assessment requires permission, must be brought promptly, and requires a realistic prospect or arguable case that the court would find a younger age.

The claimant, an asylum-seeker from Guinea, claimed to be aged 17. Manchester City Council assessed him as aged 20 and refused requests for reassessment based on further evidence, including a Guinean court document, statements from a pastor and observations by support workers.

He sought judicial review of the refusal to reassess and renewed an application for permission to challenge the original age assessment as factually wrong. Permission had been granted on the reassessment issue but refused on the challenge to the original assessment. The central issues were whether the refusal to reassess was irrational and whether permission should be granted for a precedent-fact challenge to the age assessment.

1. Ground 1 dismissed. The Council’s conclusion that the new evidence did not meet the threshold for reassessment was reasonably open to it and was not Wednesbury unreasonable.
2. The relevant threshold was whether the new material might lead to a significantly different conclusion and whether the claimant might be notably older or younger than initially assessed. The Council was entitled to consider the evidence cumulatively and to evaluate its reliability.
3. The Guinean court document was the strongest evidence relied upon, but its apparent account that the claimant’s father had obtained it conflicted with the claimant’s account of abuse by his father and with the pastor’s evidence. The circumstances in which it was obtained, the identity of the applicant and the evidence before the Guinean court remained uncertain. The Council was therefore entitled not to rely on it as proof of age. Verification by the Home Office would have addressed genuineness, not the unresolved reliability issues.
4. The judge rejected some of the Council’s reasons, including the suggestion that obtaining the document for court proceedings necessarily weakened its reliability and that it was not based on contemporaneous documents. Those criticisms did not undermine the overall rationality of the decision.
5. Observations of demeanour and interaction over time may assist an age assessment, but their weight depends on the facts. The Council was entitled to regard the evidence of the support workers as insufficient to alter the assessment. The benefit-of-the-doubt approach did not require acceptance of the claimant’s account unless a significant reason for doubt existed.
6. Ground 2 permission refused. The challenge to the December 2018 assessment was out of time under CPR r 54.5(1). In any event, the evidence did not establish a realistic prospect or arguable case that the court would find the claimant younger than assessed. The judicial review claim was dismissed.

The judgment was a first-instance decision of the High Court (Administrative Court). Permission had previously been granted on the reassessment ground and refused on the challenge to the original age assessment. The present court dismissed the claim and refused renewed permission on the latter ground.