Client Case Studies & Testimonials

We were instructed by an Saudi Arabian citizen who was openly gay. He was in the UK as a visitor, and had begun to live openly as a gay man. He made an application for leave to remain on private life grounds, arguing that he would face “very significant” obstacles to his integration in Saudi Arabia, due to his sexuality. He did not wish to claim asylum and be subject to the strict voluntary re-availment rules.

His application was refused by the Home Office, we represented him in the appeal before the First Tier Tribunal. Using a combination of caselaw and government policy, We successfully argued that this client's circumstances were within the scope of private life, as governed by paragraph 276ADE, given the obvious difficulties an openly gay man would have integrating in Saudi Arabia. The appeal was allowed, and the client was granted leave to remain on the 10-year private life route to settlement.

Westkin Associates were instructed by an Iranian national who entered the UK with leave as an Investor and the rest of her family entered as her dependants.  They made a timely application for further leave through their previous representatives, but it was refused , and the subsequent administrative review challenge was rejected as the decision maker did not accept there were any exceptional compelling factors present in the case to justify the grant of leave in the light of the family’s failure to keep a consistent balance of £1 million throughout their initial period of leave.

Instead of challenging the refusal further, the previous representatives advised to make a generic Human Rights application on FLR(O) which was also refused.

Westkin Associates were instructed to assist with the appeal. Upon reviewing the documentation, it emerged that in fact, the investment had not gone below the £1million threshold. The previous lawyers had asked for quarterly reports for the investment, which showed indeed a dip in the investment that had not been topped up by the end of the following quarter. However, the reporting period was not quarterly. It was yearly. By that point however, it was no longer possible to make a fresh application or challenge the refusal of the investor extension.

The appeal was a human rights appeal, however we provide evidence that the investor rules were actually met, and that it was unjust for the client to have been refused, well conscious of the fact that the Immigration Judge could not allow the appeal under the investor route. However, we hoped and argued that this element should have played a role in the judge’s determination on the article 8 matter as well.

Our client was also a cancer survivor, and she had to go through her brother taking his own life. Her children had also been badly affected by their uncle’s suicide, which they associated to their country “Iran”.

We obtained a social worker assessment which was instrumental in proving that it was in the children’s best interest to remain in the UK. The assessment  pointed out that anxieties such as these may be a normal part of life for some children, but that where they are acute as here, they may interfere with school, home and social life, threatening the children’s ability to learn and develop to their full potential - overall it would have been in their best interests to remain in this country where they have an established integral presence within their school and friendship groups.

The FTT dismissed the appeal. An application for permission to appeal was lodged, and subsequent to an error of law hearing, the decision of the First Tier Tribunal was set aside. The Upper Tribunal therefore proceeded to hear the case and allowed the appeal on Human Rights grounds. The client was granted leave on a 10-year route (private life) and the family are currently living in the UK.

We were instructed to assist the family with an application for our client to join his mother, now a British Citizen, in the UK at the age of 17. The case was complex as our client had lived separate from his mother for the majority of his childhood, having been raised by his grandparents. Furthermore, his younger brother was not applying at the same time for the children to join their mother together.

The application was granted without appeal, allowing the child to join his mother in the UK.

In such a case, the primary concern is who holds sole responsibility. We advised the family and worked to build a wealth of evidence covering several years which showed that despite having day to day care provided by his grandparents, the child’s mother nevertheless maintained sole responsibility for his care and upbringing. Furthermore, due to our clients age, it posed additional challenges to the potential that the Home Office would doubt whether he remains dependent on his mother or is in fact leading an independent life.

The application was granted without appeal, allowing the child to join his mother in the UK.