UI2023003235

             The Appellant, a citizen of Vietnam, entered the UK with a grant of leave until 24 July 2017, which was subsequently extended until 5 September 2020. On 23 November 2020 she was convicted and sentenced for a number of offences relating to the supply of drugs and the proceeds of crime. Some sentences were to be served concurrently, and some consecutively. In aggregate the length of the term of imprisonment that was imposed was 81 months, but individually no sentence exceeded a term of 48 months immediate custody.

             Thus the matter comes before us.

             When the appeal was called on for hearing at 1000 hours there was no attendance from either the Appellant, or any representative on her behalf, and it was duly stood down for enquiries to be made. Tribunal staff were eventually able to contact the Appellant's solicitor by telephone, who advised that he was in a café, but would log in to the hearing within thirty minutes. Thereafter there was no response to the Tribunal's attempts to contact him.

             At 1145 the appeal was called on for hearing once more. There had been no further communication from the Appellant's solicitor and no attempt to log into the hearing. There had been no attempt to log into the hearing by the Appellant, and she had not attended the hearing centre. There had been no communication for either to advise of a reason why there had been no attendance, and no application for an adjournment.

             In the circumstances we were satisfied that both the Appellant and her representative had been properly served with notice of the hearing, and that both knew the application for an adjournment made by email on 20 August 2024 had been refused. There had been no attendance by either, and no explanation for that had been offered. There had been no further application for an adjournment.