Upper Tribunal gives judgment in one of the first successful challenges to an age assessment of the Home Office’s National Age Assessment Board
On 2 December 2025, the Upper Tribunal handed down judgment in one of the first challenges to an age assessment conducted by the Secretary of State’s National Age Assessment Board (NAAB), finding the NAAB age assessment had reached the wrong factual conclusion on age and quashing the assessment: R (SS) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (JR-2025-LON-00432).
The claim was brought by a young Afghan “SS” who arrived in the UK in October 2022. At the point of arrival, he did not know his age or date of birth but provided a random date in 2005 to the Home Office making him 17 at that time. That he was a child was not disputed and he was accommodated in a Home Office run hotel for unaccompanied minors. In January 2023, he was transferred to adult asylum support accommodation when he was deemed to have turned 18. SS subsequently obtained a copy of his Afghan Tazkira which recorded he was in fact born in 2007 and was therefore 16 years old. He was referred to the London Borough of Croydon on that basis by the charity Young Roots and taken into their care.
The NAAB age assessment
Croydon referred SS to the NAAB requesting an age assessment be conducted on their behalf under section 50 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA 2022). The NAAB conducted the assessment between April to June 2024 and concluded that SS was an adult of 19 years old, born on 31.01.2005, and therefore two years older than he claimed to be. Support and accommodation provided by Croydon was terminated as a result and SS rendered homeless given he had been granted refugee status prior to the age assessment and was ineligible for asylum support as a result.
The age assessment found SS to be an adult on the basis of his initial reporting that he was born in 2005, which he had subsequently corroborated in later interview which undermined his credibility; he had not raised any objections to his recorded age until three months after his arrival in the UK; his account as to his Tazkira was inconsistent; his Tazkira was produced at a late stage and created to support his claimed age; his purported lack of memory during the age assessment interviews was him deliberately withholding information; he had said “I don’t know” at least 158 times and “I can’t remember” no less than 49 times; his claimed lack of knowledge of time or calendars was an attempt to mislead.
Challenge
The challenge to the NAAB age assessment was brought urgently in circumstances where SS was being held on remand as an adult with the Youth Court having relied on the NAAB age assessment to deem SS to be an adult. SS’s solicitor obtained expert evidence authenticating SS’s Tazkira and observation from his College in support of his age and requested the SSHD to reconsider the question of SS’s age. The SSHD declined to do so, deeming the statutory test for a reassessment of age was not met.
SS obtained a psychological report which assessed SS as having well below average scores for cognitive functioning and significant difficulties with concentration, attention and comprehension. The report was provided to the SSHD with a further request for NAAB to reconsider and reassess SS’s age, which SSHD again refused.
Permission was granted and the claim transferred to the Upper Tribunal.
Evidence before the Tribunal
Evidence obtained for the fact-finding hearing included medical evidence from three medical experts confirming that SS suffered from untreated epilepsy and PTSD, as well as cognitive issues and symptoms suggestive of an adjustment disorder. SS relied on three professionals as witnesses, who had worked with him and considered he presented as a child as well as written observation including from a clinical psychologist that SS presented with behaviour more common in younger adolescents and “a cognitive and emotional functioning level more aligned with that of a child”.
The SSHD relied on witness statements from the two NAAB social workers and sought permission at a late stage to rely on a witness statement from the NAAB Lead (Yvonne Shearwood) within the Home Office addressing the broader operation of NAAB.
Shortly before the fact-finding hearing, the Secretary of State applied for an order substituting the SSHD for NAAB as the Respondent to the claim on the basis that it was asserted that NAAB was the appropriate public authority defendant. The SSHD ultimately withdrew that application such that the Tribunal was not required to determine this issue.
Tribunal’s determination
The Tribunal made the following general findings:
In the absence of Regulations being made by the SSHD under s.53 NABA 2022, the age assessment remains subject to the principles and guidance in Merton and subsequent case law.
Those same principles are reflected in the non-statutory guidance issued by the NAAB on the conduct of age assessments conducted under NABA 2022 and in the ADCS Guidance.
The SSHD’s submission that the Tribunal should in general give NAAB age assessments greater weight (compared with local authority assessments) given NAAB’s independence, skill and specialist training was rejected. The Tribunal considered it inappropriate to make that general comment.
The task of the Tribunal, to assess each age assessment case on its own merits, without any presumption that the young person is a child or an adult, was not affected by the statutory framework in NABA 2022.
The Tribunal made the following specific findings:
The NAAB age assessment was Merton-compliant and procedurally fair and had not been challenged as being flawed as a question of process.
There was however significant additional evidence that was not before the age assessors including unchallenged expert medical evidence, including that SS had not been diagnosed or treated for his epilepsy or PTSD and adjustment disorder at the time of the assessment.
This was a significant given the weight placed by the NAAB assessors to SS’s demeanour, interaction, lack of detail, memory and inconsistencies which they deemed to suggest evasiveness or a deliberate attempt to deflect questioning suggesting he was older.
The Tribunal accepted the unchallenged medical evidence that SS’s presentation and recall was instead explained by his untreated epilepsy and mental health conditions.
The assessors’ conclusion that SS was deliberately evasive was in any event not consistent with his conduct in the age assessment in providing his Tazkira; giving consent for his family to be contacted and actively participating in the lengthy age assessment process.
Weight was placed on SS’s Tazkira and expert reports from Dr. Zadeh and Dr. Giustozzi that the SSHD had not challenged. The Tazkira was however ultimately of little assistance given SS’s account of how it was obtained in his absence.
SS’s evidence of not realising his recorded age was wrong until he was treated as an adult was accepted. It had been a central feature of the NAAB assessment that the timing of SS having raised his age was to benefit from children’s services support which the Tribunal rejected.
The Tribunal found on the balance of probabilities, SS was the age he claimed to be and born on 1 January 2007, such that he was a child at the date of the NAAB’s age assessment. The NAAB age assessment was quashed.
SS was represented throughout the claim by Antonia Benfield of Doughty Street Chambers and Edward Taylor, assisted by Amir Faizi, both of Osbornes Law. SS had considerable support from the charity Young Roots throughout the claim, with Jane Markey, Head of Service initially acting as SS’s litigation friend.
