OA144952013 & ors

This is an appeal by the Entry Clearance Officer who is the appellant in these proceedings. For clarification, I shall refer to the parties as they were before the First-tier Tribunal. Applications were made by the three appellants who were born on 29 May 1995, 28 December 1997 and 2 October 1996 respectively, for entry clearance under paragraph 297 of the Immigration Rules to settle with a parent in the UK, namely their mother. The appellants are all citizens of Nigeria. Their applications were made on 21 March 2013 and the decisions to refuse their applications were made on 31 May 2013.

Their appeals were heard by First-tier Tribunal Judge Callow on 27 May 2014. The judge allowed their appeals under the Immigration Rules.

If there is no error of law in the judge�s finding in relation to the death of the appellant's father, or none that requires the decision to be set aside, there is no need to consider further the ground in relation to the judge�s finding on sole responsibility.

The judge further noted that a copy of the first appellant's application form submitted on-line on 28 February 2012, that is to say a previous application, simply recorded the personal details of the father and made no reference to his whereabouts. The judge then heard evidence about the possible source for the assertion that the appellants did not know the whereabouts of their father.

The judge recorded the submissions made on behalf of the respondent in terms of the death certificate, those submissions being to the effect that no weight could be attached to it. The judge dealt with this issue directly at [14] whereby he stated as follows: