MS v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Facts

The appellant is a citizen of the Philippines, born in March 1980, who arrived in the United Kingdom at the age of 6 as a dependant of his mother. Beaten by his stepfather, he ran away from home and was placed in care at a Dr Barnardo's boys' home, where he came into contact with ex-child soldiers from Somalia and Liberia; attempts to place him with a foster carer failed and he was recruited into what he described as a dangerous crime syndicate. Between 1996 and 2007 he was convicted on fourteen occasions. In 2006 at Winchester Crown Court he was convicted on five counts, including possessing prohibited ammunition, receiving 48 months' imprisonment for the ammunition offences and 78 months for possession of a firearm. In July 2007 at Lewes Crown Court he was convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of ten years. Facing deportation, he claimed that removal would breach the Refugee Convention and the ECHR; the respondent refused those claims. The First-tier Tribunal, after a hearing at Taylor House on 16 August 2018, rejected the protection claim, found Exception 1 satisfied, but dismissed the appeal on the footing that the public interest in deportation was "paramount". Upper Tribunal Judge Coker set that decision aside for error of law, and the Upper Tribunal re-made it.