R (Obi) v Home Office: High Court dismisses curtailment and trafficking claims

The High Court has dismissed a Nigerian national's dual judicial review claims against the Home Office, finding that neither the curtailment of her leave to remain nor a negative reasonable grounds decision on trafficking disclosed any public law error.

In R (Kelechi Cecelia Obi) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWHC 2217 (Admin), heard in the Administrative Court in Leeds, Benjamin Douglas-Jones KC, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court, considered two linked claims brought in a single action.

The claimant had entered the UK as a student in September 2023 before switching to the skilled worker route in 2025, sponsored by a nursery to work as a nutritionist. She alleged that her employer required her to fund elements of the business, work reduced hours below her contractual minimum, cover tax liabilities, and return her salary in full shortly after receipt. When she could not meet these demands, her sponsorship and employment were terminated without notice in May 2025, while she was pregnant. She later reported the employer to the police, and the case was referred to the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority.

The Home Office curtailed her leave in August 2025 under Part 9.27.1(d) of the Immigration Rules, on the basis that she had ceased working for her sponsor, granting a sixty-day grace period. The claimant argued this decision was procedurally unfair, contending she should have been given notice and an opportunity to make representations before her leave was cut short, and that the decision-maker had failed to take account of her pregnancy and the alleged conduct of her employer.

The judge rejected both grounds. He held that the discretionary language of the rule did not import a duty to conduct a rounded assessment of all circumstances before cancellation, and distinguished the case from those involving allegations of dishonesty, where fairness requires an opportunity to respond before an adverse finding is made. Drawing on the distinction identified in R (Kumar) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 2619 (Admin), he found that ceasing to work for a sponsor was a failure to meet the requirements of the route rather than a breach of conditions, so the interview safeguards developed in cases such as Balajigari did not apply. He also found no asymmetry of knowledge of the kind that founded the duty recognised in Pathan v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 41, since the claimant already knew her employment had ended. As the pregnancy and the employer's conduct had not been disclosed to the decision-maker, there was no obligation to have regard to them.

On the trafficking claim, the judge held that the decision-maker had correctly required evidence of work exacted under a menace of penalty before finding exploitation for the purposes of Article 4 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, and that this did not conflate the means and purpose elements of the definition. Accepting deception as the means of recruitment did not compel a finding of exploitative purpose, since the two elements addressed analytically distinct questions. The judge found the reasoning in the negative reasonable grounds decision adequate when read with its accompanying annex, and rejected the submission that the outcome was irrational.

Both claims for judicial review were accordingly dismissed.