Upper Tribunal finds Vijay Jagadesham’s client was aged only 16 when he arrived in the UK following successful age assessment challenge
5 November 2025
Vijay Jagadesham represented his client in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal, London (pictured). Credit: Right to Remain.
Garden Court North’s Vijay Jagadesham successfully represented ‘SMF’ in a legal challenge to an age assessment which categorised him as “clearly an adult”.
In her decision, Upper Tribunal Judge Bruce quashed the original assessment by Derby City Council, the Respondent local authority, when it had found that SMF was an adult in his mid-20s. She decided that SMF was telling the truth about his age and ordered the Respondent to pay the Applicant’s legal costs.
SMF, aged only 16 years old when he arrived in the UK, had remained in unsuitable adult Home Office accommodation for around a year and a half, unable to sleep at night due to fear of his surrounding environment. He has now been placed in age-appropriate accommodation with the support he requires.
SMF’s challenge succeeded despite the High Court’s initial “strong temptation to certify the claim [as] totally without merit, although on all the evidence it comes very close indeed to that threshold”. At that time, SMF only had ‘his word’ that he was 16. The Respondent local authority argued that was insufficient, which Vijay disputed. Another Judge from the High Court agreed with Vijay, although the Judge also said the case was “weak”.
Unreliability of appearance and demeanour
In the original assessment of SMF as “clearly an adult”, the Respondent local authority relied heavily on his physical appearance and demeanour, although it failed to give any reasons to support this.
By the time of SMF’s challenge, the local authority relied heavily on a previous Home Office assessment, which had focused on SMF’s supposedly “strong adult-like features”, saying that he had a “slim body and used his body stature to present himself as a child.” It also emphasised SMF’s apparently receding hairline, as well as his hair colour and facial hair. The Home Office claimed SMF was 24 years of age.
Judge Bruce, however, highlighted how appearance must be approached with a “degree of caution”, pointing also to the subjective nature of the interpretation of appearance (see decision at paras 51 & 52).
Judge Bruce said: “Young men typically start to develop facial hair in adolescence, but its thickness and rate of growth can vary. Life experience, and in particular traumatic life experience, can make someone appear older than they actually are; as can genetics, and exposure to the elements. A shepherd on the mountains of Kurdistan may, for instance, appear more ‘weatherbeaten’ than an individual of the same age growing up in a city. There is always the risk that a young person might be a few years younger or older than their appearance suggests.”
“I must also acknowledge that appearance, and interpretation of appearance, is to some degree subjective. The immigration officers who conducted the initial assessment in May 2024, for instance, recorded that the Applicant had a “receding hairline”; I have to say I found this difficult to square with my own observation of him made over the two days he was before me. It did not look to me that his hairline was receding in the slightest.”
“Both the Respondent and the Home Office also emphasise the Applicant’s ‘confident adult-like demeanour’. Again, these are remarks that are of little assistance to me. Teenage boys are obviously capable of being confident and challenging; one might say that they are well known for it. Conversely, an adult might be timid and shy.”
Alongside Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU), Vijay has previously provided training on improving the process and accuracy of age assessments, reiterating the unreliability of relying on appearance and demeanour in the above video guide.
Deficiencies of local authority and Home Office age assessments
In SMF’s case, Judge Bruce relied on the evidence of others “who have spent time with the Applicant in non-formal or interview settings”, highlighting that the social workers time with SMF had “necessarily been limited” and so had not “had the opportunity to see how he spends his time day to day, or assess his level of maturity in the context of interactions with others” (para 61).
This is not the first time that the Upper Tribunal has come to a very different view of a young person’s age in contrast to that stated by the local authority or Home Office – Vijay represented each of the applicants in the following cases.
In (R) JRZ v Liverpool City Council JR/885/2021, the Upper Tribunal concluded that ‘JRZ’ had been 16 years old in contrast to social workers who assessed him as “significantly older”, with “strong developed features of an adult aged 25 years plus”. The Upper Tribunal rejected this assessment and was critical of the social workers’ assessment of physical appearance and demeanour, including their failure to consider the applicant’s background as possible explanations for the physical features relied on (e.g., see paras 61-64). Fordham J described the decision as a helpful illustration in R (Kra) v Cheshire East Council [2024] EWHC 575 (Admin) at para 23).
In (R) SP v Liverpool City Council JR-2023-LON-001584 (at para 49), the Upper Tribunal was “astonished at the description of the Applicant given by the immigration officer in Kent and the social workers. Having read those descriptions I was prepared to see someone who looked like a “clear and obvious adult” when I walked into court. What I saw instead was someone who looked very much like an adolescent boy […]” It found that SP had been 16 at the date of the brief enquiry, rather than the assessed age of 22.
In (R) MAA v Liverpool City Council JR-2023-LON-001882), the Upper Tribunal stated (at para 59): “In so far as the social workers’ assessment appears to have been based largely on the applicant’s appearance and demeanour, those are factors which have been recognised as being notoriously unreliable in determining age […] Their observations in that respect were, furthermore, at odds with, and in stark contrast to, those of third parties who had spent significantly more time with the applicant, so much so as to make one wonder if they were actually observing the same person.” It found that MAA had been 17 at the date of the brief enquiry, rather than the assessed age of 28.
Vijay Jagadesham is part of Garden Court North’s immigration team. He was instructed by Scott Laing from Bhatia Best to represent SMF.
Additional media
Free Movement – Age assessments: what happens when a child arrives in the UK?
For further information, please contact Alex Blair, Communications Manager at Garden Court North Chambers: ablair@gcnchambers.co.uk
