CGW -v- Secretary of State for the Home Department (anonymity order)

Administrative CourtHigh CourtKing's Bench DivisionAnonymity Order

Claim number: AC-2025-LON-001425

In the High Court of Justice
King’s Bench Division
Administrative Court

24 September 2025

Before:

Upper Tribunal Judge Church

Between:

The King on the application of
CGW

-v-

Secretary of State for the Home Department

Order

Notification of Judge’s Decision (CPR 54.11, 54.12)

Following consideration of the documents filed by the Claimant, the Defendant’s Acknowledgement of Service and Summary Grounds of Defence and the Claimant’s Reply

ORDER BY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE CHURCH
(Sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge)

  1. Anonymity:
    (a) Pursuant to CPR 39.2(4) and/or the Court’s inherent jurisdiction and/or s. 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998:
    (i) the Claimant’s name is to be withheld from the public and must not be disclosed in any proceedings in public; and
    (ii) the Claimant is to be referred to orally and in writing as ‘CGW’.
    (b) Pursuant to s. 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, there must be no publication of the identity of the Claimant or of any matter likely to lead to the identification of the Claimant in any report of, or otherwise in connection with, these proceedings.
    (c) Pursuant to CPR 5.4C(4):
    (i) the parties must within 7 days file a redacted copy of any statement of case filed, omitting the name, address and any other information likely to lead to the identification of the Claimant;
    (ii) if any statement of case subsequently filed includes information likely to lead to the identification of the Claimant, a redacted copy omitting that information must be filed at the same time;
    (iii) unless the Court grants permission under CPR 5.4C(6), no non-party many obtain a copy of any unredacted statement of case.
    (d) Any person wishing to vary or discharge this Order must make an application, served on each party.
  2. Permission to apply for judicial review: Permission is granted on all grounds.
  3. Case Management Directions:
    (a) The Defendant must, within 35 days of the date of service of this Order, file and serve (i) Detailed Grounds for contesting the claim or supporting it on additional grounds and (ii) any written evidence to be relied on.
    (b) The Defendant may comply with sub-paragraph (a)(i) above by filing and serving a document which states that its Summary Grounds are to stand as the Detailed Grounds required by CPR 54.14.
    (c) Any application by the Claimant to serve evidence in reply must be filed and served, together with a copy of that evidence, within 21 days of the date on which the Defendant serves evidence pursuant to (a) above.
    (d) The parties must agree the contents of the hearing bundle. An electronic version of the bundle must be prepared and lodged, in accordance with the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide Chapter 21 and the Guidance on the Administrative Court website, not less than 28 days before the date of the substantive hearing. The parties must, if requested by the Court, lodge 2 hard-copy versions of the hearing bundle.
    (e) The Claimant must file and serve a Skeleton Argument (maximum 25 pages), complying with CPR 54 PD para. 15 and the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide paras 20.1 to 20.3, not less than 21 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
    (f) The Defendant must file and serve a Skeleton Argument (maximum 25 pages), complying with CPR 54 PD para. 15 and the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide paras 20.1 to 20.3, not less than 14 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
    (g) The parties must agree the contents of a bundle containing the authorities to be referred to at the hearing. An electronic version of the bundle must be prepared in accordance with the Guidance on the Administrative Court website. The parties must, if requested by the Court, prepare a hard-copy version of the authorities bundle. The electronic version of the bundle and if requested, the hard copy version of the bundle, must be lodged with the Court not less than 7 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
    (h) The time estimate for the substantive hearing is 1 day. If either party considers that this time estimate should be varied, they must inform the court as soon as possible.

Observations and reasons

(1) Anonymity: The Claimant claims to be a victim of trafficking and to have been subjected to forced labour in cannabis farms for criminal enterprises where he was physically assaulted and threatened that he would be killed. He is vulnerable by reason of his diagnosed mental health condition. There are, accordingly, compelling reasons
for the limited derogations from the principle of open justice provided for in the Order.
(2) Permission: The decision that the Claimant seeks permission to challenge is the decision made by a decision maker on behalf of the Defendant on 4 February 2025 that there were not ‘conclusive grounds’ to establish that the Claimant was a victim of trafficking or slavery, servitude, and forced or compulsory labour (the “Conclusive Grounds Decision”).
(3) The Claimant challenges the Conclusive Grounds Decision on the basis that:
(a) the Defendant did not provide adequate reasons for its conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to establish on the balance of probabilities that the Claimant was a victim of trafficking;
(b) it was irrational because no reasonable decision maker faced with the evidence before the Defendant could have failed to conclude on the balance of probabilities that the Claimant was a victim of trafficking;
(c) the Defendant failed in her Tameside duty to make reasonable enquiries and imposed too high a threshold for evidence;
(d) the Defendant failed to adhere to her own published guidance in assigning the Claimant’s case to the IECA, when it does not fall within the exceptional categories of cases that are to be dealt with by that body; and
(e) the Defendant breached the Claimant’s rights under Article 4 of the Convention and ECAT (to which it is the Defendant’s policy to adhere).
(4) The Defendant had a broad discretion to assess the evidence before her. She was by no means obliged to accept the Claimant’s account, but she had to explain why she rejected it, and to do so with adequate clarity.
(5) The way that the Conclusive Grounds Decision is expressed could certainly be improved: the explanation of how the decision maker decided whether the key requirements of parts a, b and c were satisfied is most unsatisfactory:
(a) first, the requirement is set out;
(b) next, the Claimant’s evidence is recited;
(c) finally, a conclusion is stated that it is “therefore” considered that there is insufficient information available to make the assessment that the Claimant was subjected to an act of recruitment/ transportation/ transfer/ harbouring/ receipt/ transferring or exchanging control over to the required standard of proof.
(6) The conclusion is not really a conclusion, as it doesn’t follow from what has gone before it. It is a non sequitur. In isolation, these passages appear to betray irrational decision making. However, the Defendant says that when the Claimant’s decision is read as a whole, it is adequately clear that the Defendant did not accept the Claimant’s account and the decision discloses no error of law. She refutes the suggestion that the decision maker applied too high a threshold for evidence, and denies that the decision maker failed to make reasonable enquiries.
(7) However, the hurdle for a grant of permission is relatively low: at this stage to justify a grant of permission I need only be persuaded that the Claimant’s grounds are realistically arguable.
(8) I consider that the Claimant’s grounds clear the threshold of arguability, and a grant of permission is warranted.
(9) My grant of permission extends to all the grounds.