Case No. UKUT-00338-(IAC)

3.The following is a summary of the background to this interlocutory judgment. It does not purport to be a comprehensive summary of the procedural background or of the case as a whole. We have intentionally omitted irrelevant aspects of the history in the interests of brevity.4.The applicant is an Afghan national who entered the United Kingdom by boat on 8 September 2021. He claimed asylum the following day. That claim remains outstanding. 5.The applicant maintains that he was born in 2008. The respondent concluded, following a short-form age assessment1 in September 2001, that the applicant was an adult of between 22 and 25 years old. Immigration Officers at the Kent Intake Unit had previously concluded that the applicant was 25 or older. 6.The applicant has a brother in the UK. His brother is a recognised refugee. It is a feature of this case that the applicant’s brother stated when he was interviewed by the respondent that he had made contact with the applicant when the applicant was in Serbia, en route to the United Kingdom. He had been able to do so, he said, because he had come across a photograph of the applicant on Facebook and had been able to make contact with him as a result.7.The applicant told the social workers who interviewed him that he had put the photograph on Facebook in the hope that his brother might see it and might make contact with him. He said that he had bought a mobile telephone whilst he was in Serbia and that he had used that to create a Facebook account and to upload a family photograph which he had been given by his mother before leaving Afghanistan. The applicant was noted by the social workers who undertook the short-form assessment to be ‘using a number of opened windows on his mobile phone under the table’ and said that his friend had ‘activated the phone for him so that he can use Whatsapp.’8.In concluding that the applicant was an adult, the respondent attached significance to his appearance, his demeanour and his ability to set up and use a Facebook account.9.The applicant issued these proceedings in the Administrative Court on 25 January 2022. On 28 January 2022, Bennathan J ordered anonymity and refused to join the Secretary of State for the Home Department as an interested party. On 18 February 2022, permission to apply for judicial review was given by Bourne J, who also granted interim relief and ordered that the application be transferred to the Upper Tribunal (IAC).10.Standard case management directions were duly given by an Upper Tribunal Lawyer on 3 March 2022. The second paragraph of those directions was in the following terms:Both parties must serve on all other parties all documents relevant to the determination of age and date of birth and file a list of documents (not including the documents) served on all other parties with the Upper Tribunal electronically to [email protected], no later than 28 days (4pm) after the date on which these directions are sent. These include specifically: (i) from the applicant, documents related to his immigration claim, including all interview records, submissions, representations, decisions, determinations and any challenges or appeals by the applicant or the Home Office to any court or tribunal, (ii) from the respondent, all social care records relating to the applicant (including medical reports and information received from third parties).11.The applicant filed a list of thirteen documents in compliance with those directions on 31 March 2022. No evidence from Facebook was disclosed in that list.12.The applicant filed a bundle of witness statements shortly thereafter. There was reference at [16]-[17] of the applicant’s brother’s statement to the circumstances in which they had regained contact through Facebook and how they had chatted over Facebook Messenger before speaking through voice messages and phone calls. No evidence from Facebook was exhibited to this statement.13.An Agreed Statement of Facts was filed on 7 June 2022. This recorded, at [5], that the applicant and his brother ‘report connecting by Facebook in the summer of 2021, prior to BG’s entry to the UK’. 14.A Case Management Hearing took place before Upper Tribunal Judge Mandalia on 23 June 2022, at which the fact-finding hearing was listed to be heard on 4 October 2022, with a time estimate of three days. At paragraphs [2]-[4] of the order, the judge directed as follows:(2)The applicant and the respondent shall arrange a mutually convenient time and date for a review of the applicant’s social media accounts (the review to be undertaken by the local authority in the presence of the applicant). The review of the applicant’s social media accounts will be completed by 8th July 2022 and the applicant shall provide the respondent with his username(s) and password(s) insofar as they are available to him, for the purposes of that review. (3)The applicant shall by 4pm on 15th July 2022 disclose all relevant material following a proportionate search of the applicant’s social media or other electronic communication accounts. This will include, where the applicant has a Facebook account, the applicant’s ‘locations of access to Facebook,’ where available, and the ‘full timeline of social media activities’ that is readily available on the “Download Your Information” function of Facebook. The parties attention is drawn to paragraph [41] of the decision of the Upper Tribunal in