[2025] UKUT 041 (AAC)

In advance of the appeal hearing, both the Appellant and Respondent submitted skeleton arguments which were expanded upon during the oral hearing of the appeal.

The DBS relied upon the written evidence from witnesses, notes and reports contained in its bundle as filed and served upon the Appellant at the outset of proceedings. This amounted to 180 pages [47-227] which was all the evidence relied upon by the DBS in making the barring decision (outlined in paragraph 16). This included reliance on the informal statement of FOA, along with documents prepared by EA and AW, neither of whom were present at the hearing to give oral evidence or to be cross-examined. The DBS’ evidence was therefore untested.

The Appellant relied upon her written submissions sent to the DBS, as well as those submitted to the Upper Tribunal during the course of this appeal. She gave oral evidence during the hearing. She was represented by a lay representative, Mr Odebo who, while not legally qualified, did a noteworthy job of managing the evidence and of making submissions on behalf of his client. The Appellant was subjected to cross-examination by Counsel for the Respondent, Ms Elliot.

On the morning of the hearing, the Appellant submitted a written statement with attachments that she proposed to adduce in evidence during her appeal. The Respondent objected to the admission of the evidence on the basis that it had not been served in advance of the hearing. The Respondent was permitted time to consider the contents of the statement and the supporting evidence. The statement was essentially a formalised version of the Appellant’s various submissions throughout the course of proceedings. On the basis that the Upper Tribunal is entitled to hear fresh evidence in an appeal against a decision of the DBS, particularly where a mistake of fact is in issue (PF v DBS [2020] UKUT 256 (AAC)), and this was the material that the Appellant sought to refer to in her oral evidence, and as there appeared to be little prejudice to the Respondent to admit the evidence, the panel ruled that, the documents would be admitted unless it became clear that they bore no relevance to the issues in the appeal, or prejudiced the Respondent, in which case a further ruling could be made.

In this decision, we deal firstly with the potential errors of fact asserted by the Appellant, taking each of the allegations in turn.