Case No. UKUT-00118-(IAC)

7. The Appellants’ convictions were the sole impetus for the Secretary of State’s decisions made under section 40. Decisions to that end were initially made on 31 July 2015. The Appellants exercised their right of appeal under section 40A of the 1981 Act. Unusually, in the events which occurred, the Secretary of State’s decision- making process and the process of the FtT then merged to a certain extent. As this sounds on at least one of the grounds of appeal, it is necessary to outline what transpired between 31 July 2015 and the ultimate disposal of the appeals by the FtT. In short: (i) The appeals having been registered, a hearing date of 22 September 2015 was arranged initially. This was then re-arranged to 28 October 2015 and, in the course of a phase of active case management, this arrangement was revised. (ii) By letter dated 28 October 2015, the Secretary of State’s representative withdrew the decisions of 31 July 2015 in the cases of Messrs Khan, Rauf and Aziz. (iii) In each of the aforementioned three cases fresh decisions, dated 02 December 2015, followed. (iv) Messrs Khan, Rauf and Aziz then lodged appeals with the FtT against the fresh decisions. Those appeals were linked to the appeal of Mr Ahmed and all four appeals were then heard together. The FtT promulgated its decisions on 07 April 2016. In each case the FtT upheld the decisions of the Secretary of State. 8. At this juncture it is convenient to record that the aforementioned three Appellants – Messrs Khan, Rauf and Aziz – are each the fathers of children aged under 18 years. This realisation was the impetus for the substitution of the original decisions by replacement decisions. This does not apply to the first Appellant, Mr Ahmed, whose children were adults at all material times. We shall elaborate on this distinction infra. 9. The format of the Secretary of State’s decisions in all four cases is identical, with the exception that in the case of the first Appellant there is (as explained above) no mention of children. The