Kelechi Cecelia Obi, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Departments

In the points-based sponsorship system, the permissive power to cancel leave when a sponsored worker ceases employment does not itself require a rounded inquiry into every hardship or advance representations. Procedural fairness is contextual. Prior notice is not required where the worker knows the employment has ended, no allegation or unknown evidence is relied on, and a clear grace period and opportunity to make a further application are provided. Cessation of sponsored employment is not, without more, a breach of leave conditions attracting an interview safeguard. For a reasonable-grounds trafficking decision, ECAT requires separate act, means and purpose components. Deception in recruitment does not establish exploitative purpose. Where forced labour is the relevant form of exploitation, work must be shown to have been exacted under a menace of penalty and against the worker’s will.

The claimant, a Nigerian national, challenged two decisions concerning her immigration status. The first curtailed her Skilled Worker leave after her sponsor reported that her employment had ended. The second was a negative reasonable-grounds decision by the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority, which accepted deception in recruitment but rejected the existence of exploitation or exploitative purpose.

She brought both judicial review claims in one action under Civil Procedure Rules 7.3 and obtained permission on all grounds. The central issues were whether procedural fairness required notice, further inquiry or representations before curtailment, and whether the accepted facts established reasonable grounds to suspect trafficking for the purpose of forced labour under Article 4 of the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.

1. Disposition. Both judicial review claims were dismissed.

2. The statutory framework gave the defendant power to cancel or curtail limited leave. The relevant provision of the Immigration Rules was permissive. It did not require an all-circumstances assessment of every hardship or vulnerability, nor did it create a general duty to invite representations. Cessation of sponsored employment was a failure to maintain the basis of the immigration route, not a breach of a specific leave condition. The distinction in R (Kumar) v SSHD [2024] EWHC 2619 (Admin) applied. The interview safeguard was confined to dishonesty or reprehensible-conduct cases and cases involving immediate cancellation. Neither applied where there was no allegation of wrongdoing and a 60-day grace period was granted.

3. Fairness was contextual, applying the principles in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex p Doody [1994] 1 AC 531. The points-based scheme operated through objective and predictable criteria. The claimant knew that her employment had ended, no adverse allegation or unknown evidence had to be answered, and the decision letter gave a clear opportunity to leave, make another application or provide reasons for remaining. Pathan v SSHD [2020] UKSC 41 did not require additional time beyond the rules. The absence of the knowledge asymmetry present in cases such as R (Citizens UK) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1812 and R (Balajigari) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 673 was material.

4. The claimant’s pregnancy, the employer’s conduct and the family’s vulnerability were matters which the decision-maker could consider, but they had not been disclosed and there was no duty proactively to discover them. The guidance treated such matters principally as potentially relevant to the length of the grace period, not as preventing cancellation. The decision recorded consideration of the child’s best interests under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. In any event, relief would have been refused under section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981.

5. The reasonable-grounds threshold was equivalent to credible suspicion. The decision-maker had to assess prima facie evidence at its highest and without a full investigation or detailed credibility assessment. Article 4 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings required cumulative act, means and purpose components. Recruitment by deception did not establish recruitment for the purpose of exploitation.

6. Because forced labour was the only potentially relevant form of exploitation, work had to be shown to have been exacted under a menace of penalty and against the worker’s will. A menace could be psychological, and lawful immigration status did not preclude one. But the evidence contained no express or implied threat to cancel sponsorship or report the claimant before compliance was required. Sponsorship was terminated after her refusal to make the demanded payment. Economic necessity, low or negative remuneration and poor employment practices therefore did not establish forced labour or exploitative purpose. The purpose inquiry concerned intention at recruitment, although actual exploitation was unnecessary.

7. The decision, read with its annex and the statutory guidance, gave intelligible reasons. It explained why the wage-repayment arrangement amounted to a pay dispute and poor employment practices rather than forced labour. There was no irrational contradiction between accepting deception under the means component and rejecting exploitation under the purpose component. The trafficking grounds therefore failed.