OA136262012

The appellant appeals against a determination by First-tier Tribunal Judge Agnew, promulgated on 11 June 2013, dismissing her appeal under paragraph 297 of the Immigration Rules and under Article 8 of the ECHR.

I advised parties at the outset that I had traced the origin of the error regarding the age of the appellant�s sibling. The date was wrongly stated by the administration of the First-tier Tribunal on the outside of the Tribunal file. It appears that unfortunately the judge took the date from there, and having no reason to think that this person�s age was an issue, did not cross-refer to the other materials.

The judge does not seem to have considered the age of the appellant�s sibling by itself decisive, but she did give it importance. I think the error must have contributed to her conclusion that she was not being given a true picture of the appellant�s circumstances.

The omission to put the terms of the court judgment to parties for further comment did not appear to me to constitute legal error, until it was pointed out that the wording of the court materials may be inconsistent. Further analysis is required in any fresh decision.

Any error about amount and dates of money transfer receipts arose from the appellant�s failure to present her case clearly, and even if there was an oversight, it was not shown to be significant. Nor does there appear to have been an explanation about the children moving to Kinshasa which helped their case very much.