UI2024000093

             We heard this appeal in the morning of 31 October 2024. We reserved our decision at the end of the hearing. We discussed the case after we had risen and decided that the appeal should be dismissed for the reasons below. It was agreed that UTJ Blundell would write the decision, which would then be considered and approved by Julian Knowles J in the usual way.

             The draft decision was sent to Julian Knowles J the following day. Unfortunately, however, Julian Knowles J was indisposed and unable to consider the draft decision, and that is likely to be so for the foreseeable future. In the circumstances, the parties agreed at a case management hearing on 18 December 2024 that the Upper Tribunal should issue the decision of UTJ Blundell as its decision on the appeal.

             The appellant appeals with the permission of Upper Tribunal Judge Sheridan against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Curtis. By his decision of 23 February 2023, Judge Curtis ("the judge") dismissed the appellant's appeal against the respondent's refusal of his human rights claim. As we shall come to explain, that human rights claim was made in response to the respondent's decision to make a deportation order against the appellant as a result of his offending in the UK between March 2016 and October 2020.

             The appellant is a Portuguese national who was born on 15 June 1998. He claims to have entered the United Kingdom with his mother in June 2001, when he was three years old.

             The appellant's mother made an application for a permanent residence card on 23 August 2008. That application was refused because there was insufficient evidence of residence and because the appellant's mother had confirmed in correspondence with the Secretary of State that she had been in receipt of income support since 2002 but had not provided any evidence to show that she was unfit for work. The appellant and his mother did not appeal against that decision but they remained living in the UK.