Asylum seeker—Age—Determination

Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court, Hickinbottom J, 4 August 2010

A local authority charged with obligations to children under ss 17 and 20 of the Children Act 1989 is not bound by a simple finding of fact by the First Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (FTT) as to the age of an applicant for support.

Christopher Buttler (instructed by Steel & Shamash) for the claimant. Holly Stout (instructed by Kathryn Pettitt) for the defendant.

In April 2010, following a finding of the FTT in the course of an asylum appeal that the claimant was over 18 years old, the defendant local authority withdrew the accommodation and other support it had made available to the claimant as a child since November 2008. The claimant applied for judicial review of that withdrawal, contending that, in the absence of a proper and reasoned reassessment of the claimant’s age by the authority to withdraw the services, the authority was in