IA168882015

The Respondent was born on 7 June 1984 and is an Australian national. He met his British partner, Mathew Ferguson, in Sydney in January 2013 and began a relationship with him on 10 February 2013. They started to live together on 30 March 2013. The Respondent then came to the United Kingdom on 23 May 2013 on a two year youth mobility visa under Tier 5 of the Points Based Scheme.

In March 2014 the Resondent's partner returned to the United Kingdom and they started living together here. On 24 March 2015 the Respondent applied for further leave to remain on the basis of his relationship. At that time he still had leave to remain under Tier 5 and, therefore, it was a variation of leave application. His application was refused on 23 April 2015. He appealed on 7 May 2015 and First-tier Tribunal Judge Narayan allowed his appeal on 13 August 2015 on a family life basis.

On 21 August 2015 the Appellant appealed against this decision and on 30 December 2015 the First-tier judge Pedro granted permission on the basis that First-tier Tribunal Judge Narayan had made contradictory findings and there was also a lack of reasoning in his decision.

The Respondent did not attend the Error of Law hearing, was not legally represented and had not sent any explanation for his non-attendance. The notice of the decision to grant the Appellant permission to appeal was sent to the Respondent by second class post on 6 January 2016 at the address which he had supplied to the Tribunal. Therefore, I am satisfied that he had been notified of his hearing and consider that it is in the interests of justice to proceed with the hearing in his absence, pursuant to regulation 38 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008.

The Home Office Presenting Officer made some short submissions. She noted that the Respondent had failed to establish that he had lived together with his partner for two years or more. She also noted that at paragraph 17 of his decision First-tier Tribunal Judge Narayan said: