OA135302012

The appellant is a citizen of Sierra Leone, born in 1998. Following a grant of permission to appeal against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing his appeal against the respondent�s decision to refuse him entry clearance to the United Kingdom under paragraph 297 of HC 395 , Lord Burns and I, sitting as a panel, found, at an error of law hearing on 18 June 2013, that First-tier Tribunal Judge Brenells had made material errors of law in his decision on Article 8 of the ECHR. We directed that the decision be set aside and re-made by the Upper Tribunal with respect only to Article 8.

The appellant applied for entry clearance to settle in the United Kingdom with his father. His application was refused on 4 May 2012, on the grounds that it was not accepted that his father had sole responsibility for his upbringing. The respondent noted that the appellant�s father had gone to the United Kingdom in December 1998 when he (the appellant) was only seven months old and had left him in the care of his mother with whom he continued to reside. The respondent did not accept the claim that his mother and step-father were no longer able to care for him in Sierra Leone.

Permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal was sought on behalf of the appellant on the grounds that the judge had erred by failing to consider potential family life between the appellant and his father and had erred in finding that Article 8 was not engaged. It was asserted further that the judge, in finding that the sponsor was free to return to Sierra Leone, had failed to consider the sponsor�s role as carer for his two British citizen children.

Following the error of law hearing on 18 June 2013, Lord Burns and I reached the conclusion that the Tribunal had made a material error of law, as set out in our decision:

�Mr Gilbert, in his submissions, did not seek to challenge the judge�s findings under the immigration rules, but submitted that errors of law arose in his consideration of Article 8, in particular in regard to the failure to consider the potential family life between the appellant and his father and the potential development of relationships between the appellant and the sponsor�s British children.