SB v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Recognition of an appellant as a vulnerable adult does not make adverse credibility findings inherently unsafe. Application of the Joint Presidential Guidance Note No 2 of 2010 requires both appropriate conditions for giving evidence and an assessment of the effect of vulnerability on the quality and weight of that evidence. The relationship between vulnerability and the evidence remains for the judicial fact-finder.

In an Article 3 suicide-risk claim arising on removal, the tribunal must assess whether the claimed fear on return is objectively well founded and whether effective safeguards and treatment reduce the risk below the real-risk threshold. An adjournment challenge must be assessed by reference to the purpose for which the adjournment was actually sought.

The appellant, a Ghanaian national convicted of rape and facing deportation, appealed against the refusal of his protection and human-rights claims. He claimed that a drugs gang would harm him in Ghana and that return would create a risk of suicide.

Before the First-tier Tribunal, he sought an adjournment primarily to obtain psychiatric evidence concerning his capacity to instruct his representatives. The judge refused the application, treated him as a vulnerable witness, rejected his account as incredible, found no Article 3 breach, and dismissed the appeal.

The appeal to the Upper Tribunal challenged the refusal to adjourn, the assessment of suicide risk, and the treatment of the appellant's vulnerability when assessing credibility.

1. Appeal dismissed. The First-tier Tribunal made no material error of law.

2. The adjournment application was properly assessed by reference to its actual basis: obtaining evidence about the appellant's capacity to give instructions and participate effectively. It was not, in substance, an application for psychiatric evidence on the risk of suicide after return. The judge was entitled to regard the extensive medical records as sufficient, to note the speculative position concerning a report, and to conclude that an adjournment was unnecessary. The subsequent confirmation that the appellant had capacity reinforced that conclusion.

3. On suicide risk, the First-tier Tribunal correctly applied the approach in J v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] EWCA Civ 629. In a foreign case, the Article 3 threshold is high. Material matters include whether the feared harm on return is objectively well founded and whether safeguards and treatment can reduce any risk. The appellant's asserted fear in Ghana had been rejected as fabricated, and relevant mental-health medication was available there. The tribunal was entitled to find that the Article 3 threshold was not met.

4. Although the appellant was properly treated as a vulnerable adult under the Joint Presidential Guidance Note No 2 of 2010, that status did not invalidate adverse credibility findings. The Guidance has two functions: securing the best practicable conditions for evidence and taking vulnerability into account when evaluating that evidence. It is for the fact-finder to determine the extent of the vulnerability, its effect on the evidence, and the weight to give it. The judge expressly applied a liberal benefit of the doubt and was entitled to conclude that the fundamental contradictions and implausibilities in the account could not rationally be attributed to depression.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): Dismissed the appellant's appeal, holding that the First-tier Tribunal had made no material error of law.

• First-tier Tribunal: Refused an adjournment, dismissed the protection and human-rights appeal, and upheld the proposed deportation consequences.