KRA, R (on the application of) v Cheshire East Council
[2024] EWHC 575 (Admin)
MAA, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Hounslow
24 July 2024
[2024] EWHC 1894 (Admin)
High Court
A Sudanese man challenged the council's decision saying he was a child when he arrived in the UK. The court disagreed, because the council had several professional opinions that he was an adult, and the man's evidence wasn't strong enough.
Key Facts
- •MAA, a Sudanese national, arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker.
- •The central dispute is whether MAA was a child upon arrival.
- •Hounslow Council assessed MAA as an adult (23-25 years old).
- •MAA claims to have been a child (born 11 April 2006) at the time of arrival and subsequent assessments.
- •MAA brought a judicial review challenge against Hounslow Council's age assessment.
- •The claim included public law grounds (irrationality, procedural unfairness) and a factual challenge.
Legal Principles
Age is a question of fact; being a child triggers protective public law duties.
R(A) v London Borough of Croydon [2009] 1 WLR 2557 at para 27
Age assessment is a species of the Tameside duty to enquire; reasonableness of inquiry is key.
Secretary of State for Education and Science v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council [1977] AC 1014
Factual determination questions can subsume orthodox judicial review grounds.
R(FZ) v London Borough of Croydon [2011] EWCA Civ 59
Judicial review permission test: arguable ground with a realistic prospect of success.
Sharma v Brown-Antoine [2006] UKPC 57 at para 14(4)
Wednesbury unreasonableness applies to rationality grounds.
Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 K.B. 223
Merton compliance is about fairness, not checklists; clear cases may not require full assessment.
R (B) v Merton London Borough Council [2003] EWHC Admin 1689; R (HAM) v LB Brent [2022] EWHC 1924 Admin
Lack of an appropriate adult is not automatically fatal to an age assessment's fairness.
R (SB) v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea [2023] EWCA Civ 924
FZ test for factual challenge: could the claim, at its highest, succeed at a factual hearing?
R(FZ) v London Borough of Croydon [2011] EWCA Civ 59
Outcomes
Permission refused on all grounds (Grounds 1-5).
No arguable public law error; factual challenge fails the FZ test. The claimant's evidence was deemed insufficient to overcome the weight of consistent age assessments from trained professionals.
Interim relief refused.
Permission refused on all grounds, rendering interim relief moot.
Claimant ordered to pay defendant's costs.
Defendant's work on the acknowledgement of service was necessary and reasonable.
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