Alnoor v Secretary Of State For The Home Department

An NRM negative reasonable grounds decision must be based on a reasoned and evidence-sensitive assessment at a preliminary threshold. Grounds supporting and undermining a trafficking account may coexist; weighing them belongs to the conclusive grounds stage.

Anxious scrutiny remains reasonableness review, not merits substitution, but requires rigour. The decision must explain adverse findings, identify missing information, address whether corroboration can reasonably be expected, and show that factors favouring the claimant were properly considered. Multiple flaws may cumulatively make a decision unlawful.

A grant of refugee status does not necessarily make an historic overseas-trafficking challenge academic where a positive decision may lead to needs-based support. Anonymity requires case-specific necessity.

The claimant challenged a negative reasonable grounds decision made under the National Referral Mechanism concerning alleged trafficking and forced labour in Libya, together with a later letter maintaining that decision. The challenge was brought after the claimant had been granted refugee status on the basis of his fear of persecution in Sudan.

The defendant argued that the claim had become academic and opposed continuing anonymity. The central issues were the lawfulness of the decision under anxious scrutiny, statutory materiality, the effect of the refugee grant, the need for anonymity, and payment on account of costs.

1. Academicity. The claim remained justiciable. The overseas and historic-case guidance contemplated a freestanding finding of fact and continuing support and protection while an NRM case was considered. A claimant did not have to identify prospectively the precise support benefit that a positive decision might produce. The court relied on the importance of NRM decisions as gateway decisions concerning important rights, as recognised in R (MN) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 1746.
2. Review standard. Anxious scrutiny was an adjusted form of reasonableness review. It remained secondary and non-substitutionary, preserving primary decision-maker latitude, but required particular care and greater rigour in reasoning. The decision had to grapple with the principal controversial issues and show that every factor favouring the claimant had been properly taken into account. The court applied the reasoning on flaws in the reasoning process in R (Law Society) v Lord Chancellor [2018] EWHC 2094 (Admin), R (YH) v SSHD [2010] EWCA Civ 116 and R v SSHD, ex p Bugdaycay [1987] 1 AC 514. At the reasonable grounds stage, reasonable grounds for belief could coexist with reasonable grounds for disbelief; weighing the competing grounds was for the conclusive grounds decision, following R (HAM) v SSHD [2015] EWHC 1725 (Admin).
3. Unlawful NRG decision. The account met the three trafficking components on its face. Nevertheless, four demonstrable flaws vitiated the decision: reliance on an alleged absence of indicators despite multiple indicators in the account; criticism of the level of detail without identifying the detail reasonably expected; leaving the question of reasonably expected corroboration unresolved despite overseas exploitation; and an unclear and unsupported adverse timing inference. The flaws had both individual and cumulative significance. The decision was quashed and the reasonable grounds question had to be retaken afresh.
4. Materiality and response letter. It was impossible to say that the outcome would highly likely have been substantially the same without the unlawful reasoning. The expert report and matters concerning alleged stabbing could be considered on reconsideration. The letter maintaining the NRG decision could not assist, but no separate quashing order was necessary.
5. Anonymity and costs. Refugee status and potential victim status created no automatic right to anonymity. No case-specific necessity or evidenced risk justified derogation from open justice, so the anonymity order and reporting restrictions were discharged. The defendant was ordered to pay costs. Under CPR r 44.2(8), 60% of the schedule was payable within 28 days, subject to particularised objection within 14 days and determination on the papers if necessary.

This was a first-instance judicial review. The claim was commenced on 19 August 2024 and permission was granted after an oral renewal hearing on 16 December 2024. The judgment determined the challenges to the NRG Decision and the Letter of Response.