A1 v Home Secretary: Court of Appeal allows revocation appeal in terrorism refugee status case

The Court of Appeal has allowed the Secretary of State's appeal in A1 v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWCA Civ 807, finding that the First-tier Tribunal made a material error of law in its assessment of whether a Syrian refugee convicted of terrorism-related offences continued to pose a danger to the community. The case has been remitted to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) for redetermination.

The judgement, delivered by Lord Justice Singh (with whom Lord Justice Edis and Lord Justice Lewis agreed) on 26 June 2026, concerns section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which creates two rebuttable presumptions where a person has been convicted of a qualifying offence and sentenced to at least two years' imprisonment: first, that they have been convicted of a particularly serious crime, and second, that they constitute a danger to the community of the UK. The burden of rebutting each presumption lies with the convicted person.

A1, a Syrian national granted refugee status in 2014, pleaded guilty in September 2017 at Manchester Crown Court to two counts of terrorism-related offending: distributing a terrorist publication and encouraging terrorism, both arising from Islamic State (Daesh) content posted on Facebook. He was sentenced to concurrent two-year terms. The sentencing judge found A1 had an extremist mindset supportive of Islamic State, though accepted that his offending stemmed from the killings of his father and brother-in-law by a rival militant group in Syria. The judge observed that A1 was not of a mindset to encourage "directly" acts of terrorism within the United Kingdom.

A1's refugee status was revoked by the Secretary of State in December 2022. The FTT allowed his appeal in July 2024, finding that whilst he had not rebutted the first presumption, he had rebutted the second: that he posed a danger to the community. The Upper Tribunal dismissed the Secretary of State's appeal in March 2025, finding no material error of law in the FTT's determination.

On further appeal, Singh LJ identified a logical inconsistency at the heart of the FTT's reasoning. When addressing the first presumption, the FTT had reached critical findings: that A1 had not acknowledged the intentionality of his acts, that his oral evidence denying intentionality was inconsistent with the sentencing remarks, and that his claims to have had no interest in Daesh ideology contradicted the expert extremism risk report. When the FTT then turned to the second presumption, it never returned to those findings and, crucially, never addressed whether A1 still supported Daesh. Singh LJ held this was not merely an inadequacy of reasons but a material error of law: the FTT had failed to determine a central question of fact on which the burden lay with A1.

The Court acknowledged the limited scope for appellate intervention in FTT decisions, noting that many of the Secretary of State's criticisms amounted in substance to a disagreement with factual evaluations and did not disclose errors of law. The recent judgement in KD v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWCA Civ 349 was treated as of limited assistance, being a perversity case decided on its own facts. Singh LJ nonetheless accepted at a level of generality that in terrorism cases the level of potential harm may be so serious that even a relatively low risk of further offending may be insufficient to rebut the statutory presumption of danger.

As crucial factual issues remained unresolved, the Court remitted the case to the FTT for redetermination rather than substituting its own decision.

A1 v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWCA Civ 807. Lord Justice Singh (main judgement), Lord Justice Edis (Vice-President of the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division) and Lord Justice Lewis. Court of Appeal (Civil Division). 26 June 2026. Tom Tabori (instructed by the Government Legal Department) for the Secretary of State. Ali Bandegani (instructed by Fountain Solicitors) for A1.