IA000122017

The appellant in this appeal is the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the respondent is Mr Ahammed, a citizen of Bangladesh born on 5 February 1984. However, it is more convenient to refer to the parties as they were before the First-tier Tribunal and therefore I shall refer from now on to Mr Ahammed as "the appellant" and to the Secretary of State as "the respondent".

The appellant was granted leave to enter the UK on 10 October 2007 as a student and he was granted extensions of his leave in this capacity. In July 2014 he applied for further leave to remain as a Tier 2 (General) Migrant but his application was refused and he appealed. The appeal was heard by Judge of the First-tier Tribunal Eldridge sitting at Harmondsworth on 10 March 2016. The appellant was unrepresented and did not appear at the hearing. There was no attendance by the respondent either so the judge determined the appeal on the papers.

The respondent proceeded to make the decision dated 8 December 2016. The brief reasons for refusal stated that the Acorn Lodge COS which the appellant had submitted was false and therefore the application was again refused under paragraph 322(1A). The appellant appealed again and this time he attended the hearing, which was held at Taylor House on 28 November 2017.

Permission to appeal was granted by the First-tier Tribunal because it was arguable that Judge Mensah had erred in the way in which she applied paragraph 322(1A).

I heard submissions from the representatives as to whether the decision of the First-tier Tribunal contains a material error of law. I shall refer to these in dealing with the issues as they arise.