Mark Ockelton, the very long-serving vice-president of the Upper Tribunal’s Immigration and Asylum Chamber, retires today. He had served as an immigration adjudicator then judge for over three decades. Always clear in his views and happy to share those views with others, inside the hearing room and outside it, Ockelton had a huge impact on immigration and asylum practice and on immigration and asylum law. We wish him well in his retirement.

From the judiciary website:

Vice President Ockelton was called to the Bar (Lincoln’s Inn) in 1977 and elected a Bencher in 2001. He was appointed a part-time Immigration Adjudicator in 1992 and an Immigration Judge in 1996. He was appointed Vice President and then Deputy President of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal in 2000 and a Legal Member of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission in 2001. He was appointed a Recorder in 2003, a Deputy President of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in 2005 and a Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge (Administrative Appeals Chamber) in 2008. He was authorised to sit as a High Court Judge in 2008 and was Deputy Chancellor of the Diocese of Hereford from 2010 to 2021. He was appointed Vice President of the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) in 2010 and was Acting Senior Judge of the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus from 2013 to 2022. He was appointed Chancellor of the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham in 2016 and Chancellor of the Diocese of Hereford in 2021.