Basmah Sahib and Javaria Ahmed of Bindmans LLP have secured a positive age decision in the case of ARIA v London Borough of Hounslow (JR-2024-LON-000862).

On 21 November 2024, Upper Tribunal Judges Frances and O’Brien ruled that ‘ARIA’ was likely born in 2007 (as he had claimed). The judges announced their decision in open court, within hours of hearing ARIA’s emotional testimony.

On Thursday morning, UTJ Frances and O’Brien’s written judgment was handed down giving their reasons for ruling that ARIA was born in the year he claimed and that he was likely to have been a 16-year-old child when he arrived in the UK in July 2023.

Like many Sudanese nationals,  ARIA’s story of escape from civil unrest in Sudan is a heart breaking and all too familiar one involving sudden familial separation in violent and chaotic circumstances. His journey to the UK was far from straightforward, and the last thing he expected on arrival in the UK was that authorities wouldn’t believe him when he told them that he was a child who wanted to go to school and live alongside his fellow age mates. ARIA tried to explain that in smaller Sudanese villages – like the one where he was born – births aren’t recorded in the same way that they are in the UK.

On arrival in the UK, in the absence of any official documentation, ARIA was age assessed by a Home Office  worker at the Kent Intake Unit who disputed his age on the basis of his physical appearance and demeanour, which was deemed by the Home Office case worker to ‘very strongly suggest’ that he was ‘significantly over 18 years of age’. ARIA was accommodated in an asylum hotel near Heathrow airport with adults. 

In August 2023, on the request of the Refugee Council, a social worker from the London Borough of Hounslow held a brief meeting with  ARIA to assess his age and – like the Home Office caseworker – also concluded that ARIA was an adult, again purely on the basis of his physical appearance and demeanour.

ARIA was dispersed to adult asylum support: a hotel in Aberdeenshire. On the request of this firm, in September 2023, Aberdeenshire Council conduced a brief enquiry arriving at the same conclusion as the Kent Intake Unit and the London Borough of Hounslow.  

Because of the procedural shortcomings of these three, State conducted age assessments, in February 2024, Mrs Justice McGowan DBE sitting in the High Court granted ARIA permission to proceed with his judicial review challenge against the London Borough of Hounslow’s age decision.

Conscious of the absence of a trauma-informed, case law compliant age assessment in this case, Bindmans LLP instructed an Independent Social Worker (Jo Schofield) to conduct such an assessment. Ms Schofield, assisted by a colleague, deployed creative techniques in her meeting with ARIA to elicit clear and detailed responses from him about the chronology of his life. For example, she broke up the monotony by playing games which ARIA enjoyed, and drew pictures to help ARIA visualise his own life story. After a 2-day interview, Ms Schofield formed the view that there was more evidence to support ARIA’s claimed age than there was to dispute it. She and her colleague recommended that ARIA’s claimed date of birth be accepted by Hounslow.

ARIA’s case was transferred to the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), where UTJ Frances and O’Brien heard evidence over the course of a three-day trial. ARIA was supported by his litigation friend, Ms Erinc Argun-Kayim from the Refugee Council, who – alongside Ms Schofield – gave evidence in ARIA’s favour. In arriving at their ruling, the judges also heard evidence from Hounslow’s social worker and from ARIA himself. 

The judges agreed that Ms Schofield’s was the only age assessment carried out in ARIA’s case which was consistent with the guidance in R (B) v LB of Merton [2003] 4 All ER 280 and R (AS) v Kent County Council (age assessment; dental evidence) [2017] UKUT 446 (IAC). The judges therefore attached ‘significant weight to her opinions and conclusions.’

The judges held that Ms Erinc Argun-Kayim gave ‘reliable and valuable evidence’ and were not persuaded by an argument deployed by Hounslow, seeking to undermine her evidence due to her work (supporting age disputed asylum seeking children) for the Refugee Council.

By contrast, the judges attached ‘little weight’ to the assessments by the London Borough of Hounslow and Aberdeenshire Council, as both were based on physical appearance and demeanour which are ‘notoriously unreliable bases for assessing age’. Seasoned age dispute practitioners will recognise this oft repeated caution from the well known case of YS v The Home Office [2014] EWHC 2483 (QB), signalling a ‘back to basics’ approach from the Upper Tribunal.

In assessing ARIA’s own evidence about his limited knowledge of his precise date and month of birth, the judges acknowledged that this is not unusual as ‘there is not a great deal of attention paid to dates of birth in Sudanese villages and the significance of dates of birth in Sudan in general is considered less important than in the UK.‘ Rather, the judges attached weight to the fact that ARIA had given a consistent account of how and when he became aware of his year of birth, recognising that ARIA had maintained his account throughout many interviews, various witness statements and during cross-examination. They accordingly found that ‘there was no indication that [ARIA] had rehearsed his account or learned a false narrative.’

Basmah Sahib, who is ARIA’s solicitor, said: ‘This ruling should serve as a reminder to local authorities that long established age assessment principles have stood the test of time. Consequently, brief meetings to determine age, and age decisions which are predicted on appearance and demeanour, are unlikely to stand up to scrutiny at trial.’

ARIA was represented by Antonia Benfield of Doughty Street Chambers.

You can read the full Upper Tribunal ruling here.