[2025] UKUT 303 (AAC)

The DBS reached the Barring Decision on the basis of findings that EAO had engaged in ‘regulated activity’ for the purposes of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (the “SVGA”) by reason of having worked as a support worker, and she had engaged in ‘relevant conduct’ in relation to vulnerable adults for the purposes of the SVGA because between 2020 and 2022 she used Oyster cards belonging to vulnerable adult service users for her own travel and on 3 February 2020 she pretended to spit at a vulnerable adult service user.

EAO considered the Barring Decision unduly harsh and she completed a UT10 form to apply to the Upper Tribunal for permission to appeal it. She asked for an oral hearing of her permission application. The matter came before me and I directed a “rolled up” oral hearing to decide whether to grant an extension of time to admit EAO’s late application and, if so, whether to grant permission to appeal.

At the oral hearing, EAO explained how she came to make her application after the deadline for an in-time application, and I was persuaded that the interests of justice favoured my exercising my discretion to extend time and admit her application.

At the hearing, EAO accepted that she did the things that the DBS had said that she did (using service users’ Oyster cards for her own personal travel and pretending to spit at a service user). While she maintained that her employers’ procedures for use of service users’ Oyster cards were somewhat unclear and she had been told by a colleague to use service users’ Oyster cards for her own travel, she accepted that the things she had done were wrong and she said that she regretted them.

When I asked her whether her case was that she didn’t realise that her conduct was wrong at the time, but now realised that it was, she told me frankly that she did know it was wrong at the time, but she didn’t think that she would get caught. However, she said that she now regrets her behaviour and has learned her lesson and would never do such things again.

EAO disputed whether her actions in using service users’ Oyster cards and pretending to spit at a service user (in order to discourage the service user from spitting at her) endangered any vulnerable adult or would be likely to endanger any vulnerable adult. However, I decided that it was not realistically arguable that the DBS’s finding that they did amount to ‘relevant conduct’ was mistaken.

I was persuaded to grant permission to appeal on the sole ground that the Barring Decision may not have been proportionate.

I made directions and listed the matter for a face-to-face hearing of the substantive appeal before a panel of a judge and two expert members.