NN v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Facts

The appellant, NN, is a Vietnamese national who was granted anonymity by the Tribunal under rule 13(1)(b) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules 2014. He claims that about a week after his grandmother died in September 2023 a group of men came to his house, told him that as her only remaining heir he had become responsible for repaying a loan she had taken from illegal moneylenders, threatened and assaulted him, and demanded payment. He says he went into hiding, was then contacted online by someone offering work in Romania, paid that person to arrange his travel and documents, and was subjected to forced labour there before escaping and travelling on through France, where he spent four days in the jungle, to the United Kingdom. He claimed asylum, saying he feared the same criminal network on return as a debtor and as a former victim of trafficking, and that there was neither sufficiency of protection nor a viable internal relocation option. The Secretary of State refused the claim on 7 October 2024, not accepting the account and relying on inconsistencies within it, and maintaining that the Vietnamese authorities were willing and able to protect him and that he could relocate to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City or Da Nang. The appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal, which heard the case at Birmingham on 9 September 2026.