OA003682014 & OA003692014

The Respondent noted that the Appellants were residing with their maternal grandmother. The Appellants had provided no evidence that their mother, the Sponsor, had any day-to-day responsibility for them. The Appellants had last visited their parents in the United Kingdom in 2006 and the Sponsor had visited her children in Nigeria in 2012. There was no other evidence that the Appellants had seen their mother since her arrival in the United Kingdom in 2005. The Sponsor could thus not satisfy the sole responsibility test under sub-paragraph (e).

The Judge heard oral testimony from both the Sponsor and the children�s father but had reservations about the evidence of them both. At paragraph 17 of his determination the Judge wrote:

�I was not satisfied that sub-paragraph 297(i)(f) or Article 8 was engaged given that the Appellants are well integrated in Nigeria and have a large extended family in that country�.

In grounds of appeal which at seven pages were one page longer than the determination appealed against, it was argued that the Judge�s finding that the Appellants were well integrated into a large extended family was not borne out by the evidence. The Appellants still had to look after themselves. Apart from the Sponsor�s brother no other family member was willing to take them in. The evidence about the grandmother was that prior to the application being made she was no longer able to bathe or take care of herself.

The application for permission to appeal came on the papers before First-tier Tribunal Judge Cox on 27 th November 2014. In granting permission he wrote: