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The Appellant’s grounds of appeal
The Appellant’s grounds of appeal
The Appellant has not had the benefit of professional legal advice in the conduct of his appeal. As a result, and understandably enough, his grounds of appeal have not been drafted in the way that a legal specialist would do. However, Mr Webster, who prepared the written response to the appeal on behalf of the DBS, helpfully summarised the Appellant’s grounds, as he understood them, in the following way:
Mistake of fact – the Appellant:
did not exchange electronic messages with Witness A in which the Appellant stated that he had engaged in sexual activity with one or more children or used words to that effect;
did not by his conduct demonstrate a sexual interest in children / engage in conduct that was sexually motivated; and
was not in possession of illicit images of children and category A videos containing footage of sexual activity between children and male adults.
Error of law – the Respondent failed to consider the evidence submitted by the Appellant (particularly character references, employment history & record).
Error of law – the Respondent over-relied on the TRA’s findings without obtaining the evidence that the TRA considered.
Error of law – the Respondent attached too much significance to the (admitted) possession of a Class A drug and/or failed to have due regard to the context in which the Appellant used the drug and the low risk of recidivism.
We considered this to be a fair summary of the Appellant’s primary grounds of appeal. The Appellant certainly did not suggest that it was anything other than an accurate account.
We also considered that in practice the fate of this appeal turned on our assessment of the evidence relating to two mistake of fact issues, being (1) the electronic messaging with Witness A; and (2) the alleged possession of IIOC. We say that as it appeared to us that if the DBS were correct in either of those two respects, and so one or other (or neither) of the decisions were not vitiated by a material mistake of fact, then the barring decision was inevitable. Accordingly, we made these two factual issues the principal focus of our consideration.
We start, however, with some general observations about the Appellant’s evidence.
- Heading
- The decision of the Upper Tribunal is to dismiss the appeal. The decision of the Disclosure and Barring Service was not based on any material mistake in any finding of fact and involved no mistake on
- Introduction
- A summary of the factual background
- The Upper Tribunal oral hearing
- The legal framework for barring decisions
- The Disclosure and Barring Service’s decision in 2024 to bar the Appellant
- The Appellant’s grounds of appeal
- The Appellant’s oral evidence
- Mistake of fact and the electronic messaging with Witness A
- Did the Appellant exchange electronic messages with Witness A?
- Did the Appellant state that he had engaged in sexual activity with one or more children (or use words to that effect)
- Did the Appellant’s conduct demonstrate a sexual interest in children and/or was sexually motivated?
- Mistake of fact and the alleged possession of IIOC
- The error of law arguments
- The Appellant’s other arguments
- Disposal
- Conclusions