OA004522014

The appellant in these proceedings is the Secretary of State. For the sake of clarity however, I refer to the parties as they were before the First-tier Tribunal.

Thus, the appellant, whom I shall identify as S because of her age, is a citizen of Jamaica born on 17 May 2001. An application was made for entry clearance as a dependent child. That application was refused in a decision dated 4 December 2013 with reference to paragraph 297 of the Immigration Rules. There was in fact a contemporaneous decision made in respect of the appellant's brother K, whose appeal also came before the First-tier Tribunal but whose appeal was dismissed by the First-tier Judge.

Returning to the case of this appellant, the appeal came before First-tier Tribunal Judge Thanki at a hearing on 29 May 2015 whereby he dismissed the appeal of the appellant's brother but allowed the appeal of this appellant. He concluded, in summary, that the appellant's mother, YF, who is a British citizen, has had sole responsibility for the appellant within the meaning of the Rules.

The respondent's grounds of appeal before me focus on the question of a letter apparently provided by the appellant's father in Jamaica consenting to the appellant living in the UK permanently. It is argued on behalf of the respondent in the grounds that there is no other independent evidence to confirm that the appellant's father had indeed so consented or whether the signature on the letter was his.

It is submitted that the appellant had failed to discharge the burden of proof by failing to prove that the appellant's father had abdicated responsibility for her. It is also said that at [14] of the determination there is a contradiction or inconsistency although that purported inconsistency was not relied on in submissions before me.