Zehrah Hasan of the Garden Court Immigration & Public Law Teams acted for the claimant, instructed by Rohan Samrai & Meikei Chan of Bhatia Best Solicitors.
Zehrah Hasan successfully represented a young asylum seeker in an age assessment judicial review against a Local Authority.
The claimant is a teenager from Ethiopia who entered the UK as an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child. He was assessed to be an adult by Border Force officials on arrival and subsequently, by a Local Authority, following a two-hour ‘Brief Enquiry’ interview as to his age. The Local Authority considered him to be in his mid-20s based largely on his physical appearance and demeanour.
Judicial Review Proceedings
Zehrah was instructed in his claim for judicial review lodged last year. Following a hearing at Manchester High Court before Upper Tribunal Judge Plimmer in November 2024, the claimant was granted permission for his judicial review and interim relief, for the Local Authority to treat and accommodate him as a child in need pursuant to s.17 and s.20 of the Children Act 1989. This meant the claimant was accommodated in age-appropriate accommodation pending transfer of his judicial review to the Upper Tribunal for a final fact-finding hearing.
When preparing for the claimant’s hearing in the Upper Tribunal, further evidence was filed including from his Support Worker at his accommodation for young people, confirming that they believed the claimant to be a child. The Local Authority continued to defend its Brief Enquiry decision, despite the substantive and procedural flaws raised and the positive case as to the claimant’s age.
A full fact-finding hearing was listed in the Upper Tribunal for October 2025. However, a week before the hearing and after extensive negotiations, the Local Authority agreed to settle the judicial review in the claimant’s favour; thereby accepting his age and agreeing to continue treating and accommodating him as a child under the Children Act 1989.
The Age Dispute Process: Impacts & Issues
This was an important outcome for the claimant, whose mental health, well-being and access to education and support had been detrimentally impacted by the protracted dispute as to his age. The final resolution of his case, without him having to endure the stress of further proceedings or a contested hearing, was crucial as it avoided any further re-traumatisation of this young person.
The case also demonstrated the ways in which short-form age assessments can be successfully challenged in the courts, especially where they fail to meet important standards of fairness and rely extensively on “notoriously unreliable” features such as physical appearance and demeanour.
The systemic issues with perfunctory age assessments based on physical features have been widely criticised across the sector, including in the most recent Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration report, and in research by Young Roots and Humans For Rights Network. The Helen Bamber Foundation found that the age dispute process has the potential to significantly exacerbate the mental health difficulties of already vulnerable unaccompanied young people seeking asylum, and that children’s rights must be better protected going forwards.
