[2025] UKUT 303 (AAC)

The hearing of the appeal took place at the Upper Tribunal in London on 18 June 2025. We were assisted by a Yoruba interpreter, Mr Anthony Labeodan.

EAO represented herself at the hearing. Having sworn to tell the truth, she gave mixed evidence and submissions, and made herself available to be cross-examined by Mr Ryan for the DBS.

EAO spoke about the pressure that staff were under, saying that during the Covid pandemic she was the main carer for four clients, and had received a commendation letter for the skill, experience and commitment she showed in her work.

The DBS made findings in relation to two different examples of ‘relevant conduct’. One concerned a service user who she said “took comfort” from spitting at new staff members on a fairly frequent basis. She said that colleagues had told her that the way to manage this behaviour was to pretend to spit back at her. She emphasised that she did not actually spit at the service user, but merely pretended to, and that this succeeded in stopping the service user’s unwanted behaviour.

EAO accepted that she had on three occasions used service users’ Oyster cards to pay for her own travel, but she maintained that others had done this too, and she denied that she presented any risk to the vulnerable adults she worked with. EAO said that she understood the term “financial abuse” and confirmed that she had undertaken e-learning on safeguarding adults. When pressed by Ms Bainbridge as to whether using their Oyster cards on three occasions did not involve financial harm she said that she had not had time to get money and had not followed the correct procedures. Under cross-examination by Mr Ryan EAO accepted that she had previously accepted that she had been wrong to use service users’ Oyster cards for her own personal travel, that the service users in question were vulnerable adults, and that the use of the Oyster cards amounted to financial abuse.

However, EAO said that the Barring Decision was disproportionate. She said that she had tried to find further work since being placed on the Adults’ Barred List. She said that while she had got a job involving children about the end of last year, that had come to an end and since then she had only been able to get work as a door supervisor, which was not what she wanted to do. She wanted to return to working in care, which she had done ever since she arrived in the UK.

EAO asked the Tribunal for compassion. She said that the Barring Decision effectively restricts her from earning a living for 10 years and means that she cannot support her aged parents abroad.

Mr Ryan, for the DBS, said that the scope of EAO’s appeal (given the terms of the grant of permission) was narrow. He enjoined the Tribunal to give appropriate weight to the DBS’s explanation of the rationale behind the Barring Decision as set out in its ‘Barring Decision Making Process’ document, which includes the ‘financial abuse tool’ assessment template.