CGW, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

A negative Conclusive Grounds decision under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 must be supported by reasons that engage with the material evidence and rationally justify the conclusion. The decision-maker must assess the totality of the available evidence and must make further reasonable inquiries where the information is insufficient or contradictory. There is no minimum level of detail that an alleged victim must provide. A failure to provide sensory detail cannot, without more, justify rejection, particularly where the account was prepared in English for a person who could not speak or write English. A flawed Conclusive Grounds decision does not, without evidence of denied protection or other relevant treatment, establish a breach of Article 4 of the Convention.

The claimant challenged a negative Conclusive Grounds decision made by the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority on behalf of the Secretary of State. He said that he had been trafficked from Vietnam, held against his will in cannabis farms and forced to work without pay. The police had found him in a locked cannabis farm after he had sought to alert them to his situation, and he had received a positive Reasonable Grounds decision.

The challenge alleged inadequate reasons, irrationality, insufficient inquiry, unlawful allocation of the case to the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority rather than the Single Competent Authority, and breaches of Article 4 and the European Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings. The central issues were whether the decision-making complied with the statutory guidance and public law standards, and whether the decision itself established a Convention breach.

1. Grounds 1–3 succeeded. The negative Conclusive Grounds decision was unlawful. Under s.49 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the decision had to be made on the balance of probabilities and in accordance with the statutory guidance. The guidance required every reasonable effort to obtain useful information and further inquiry where the available material was insufficient or contradictory.
2. The reasons considered the three components of adult human trafficking—action, means and purpose of exploitation—by reciting the legal requirement, summarising the claimant’s account and then stating that there was insufficient information. That conclusion did not rationally follow. The decision did not say that the claimant’s account was incredible, explain why the information was insufficient, or engage with the powerful circumstantial evidence: he was found unable to leave a cannabis farm, after apparently attempting to contact the police, in premises containing a substantial criminal enterprise.
3. Anxious scrutiny did not require the decision-maker to mention every trivial point. It did require careful consideration of any factor capable of materially affecting the outcome. There was no minimum level of detail required for a positive decision. The assessment had to be based on the totality of the evidence, including circumstantial evidence. If more detail or an explanation of apparent inconsistencies was needed, the claimant should have been asked questions in writing or interviewed under the guidance. The witness statements had been prepared in English for a Vietnamese-speaking claimant, so their brevity could not fairly be treated as reflecting the detail he could give orally in his own language.
4. The defendant’s witness statement could not introduce new reasons for the decision. Its assertion that the claimant lacked sufficient information about the exploitation, events, locations and perpetrators was materially different from the stated reliance on sensory detail. The assertion that the outcome would probably have been the same did not cure the defective reasoning.
5. Ground 5 failed. The claimant had been rescued, investigated and supported. The unlawful decision, without evidence that he was thereby left without material protection, did not itself establish a breach of Article 4 or s.6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The unincorporated ECAT could not be relied on directly, and the ECAT complaint duplicated the public law challenge.
6. Ground 4 failed. The IECA and SCA were operational units, not statutory bodies. The guidance allowed flexibility based on Home Office operational priorities, and the procedures and legal responsibility were the same whichever unit acted.
7. The claim succeeded in part. The Conclusive Grounds decision was quashed and the defendant was required to take a fresh decision.