“I give their evidence significant weight”: Young Roots’ role in important legal win

A young person supported by Young Roots has just been successful in an important challenge to a National Age Assessment Board age assessment decision. 

Earlier this month, the Upper Tribunal published the judgment of one of the first challenges to an age assessment conducted by the National Age Assessment Board, which is part of the Home Office.  

You can hear more about the National Age Assessment Board and our concerns about its independence in this webinar below:

In this case, the judge ruled that it was inappropriate to give NAAB age assessments greater weight than local authority assessments given that the role of the Tribunal is assess each individual age assessment on its merits.  

The judge particularly noted the importance of Young Roots’ staff members who gave oral evidence during the hearing, which was “clear and credible" and not overstated: 

" I also had the benefit of written and oral evidence from [Young Roots]. Although the age assessment included observations from the Applicant’s social worker, she had at the time of the assessment only worked with the Applicant for a period of four months and had seen him on a monthly basis. She had not observed the Applicant with other young people ... 

On the basis of their interactions with the Applicant, both witnesses were firmly of the view that he was his claimed age rather than older. Because [they] had had more interactions with the Applicant and had done so over a longer period of time, and because [they] had observed him interacting with peers, I preferred their evidence to the views of the Applicant’s social worker contained in the age assessment and I give their evidence significant weight." 

This very much reflects the finding in our 2024 report “They made me feel like myself”, co-written with the Helen Bamber Foundation, in which we demonstrated that youth activities such as those provided by Young Roots provide unique insights into a young person’s age: 

“because the environment is age-appropriate and supportive..., it enables young people to better demonstrate their age. This is in contrast to the current standard age assessment process which often involves long interrogative meetings held in sterile adult spaces, conducted by a panel of unknown professionals. 

[Youth activities] benefits young people and assists decision-makers by offering observations of the young person’s interactions and behaviours in environments that would otherwise not be accounted for in assessments.” 

In this young person’s legal case, the Tribunal found on the balance of probabilities that he was the age he claimed to be - he was a child at the date of the NAAB age assessment. The NAAB age assessment was overturned. We are very grateful to the young person’s legal team from Doughty Street Chambers and Osbornes solicitors in securing justice for this young person.