[2025] UKUT 119 (AAC)

In accordance with the legal principles we have set out above, it is for us as a Tribunal to decide whether the barring decision in this case constitutes a proportionate decision that is compatible with the appellant’s rights under the ECHR, which include his rights to privacy, family life, reputation and his civil right to practise his profession as a teaching assistant and to work with children generally. In doing so, we afford appropriate weight and respect to the view of DBS as the primary decision-maker and take full account of DBS’s reasons for its decision as set out in its final decision letter and the BDP document.

We are satisfied that the objective of protecting children and vulnerable adults is sufficiently important in principle to justify the limitation of the appellant’s rights and that the barring decision is rationally connected to the objective. We found no other material error of law or fact in DBS’s decision and we accordingly afford DBS’s views on proportionality in this case a high degree of respect.

In particular, we have decided that DBS was not wrong to find that the appellant has a sexual interest in children (as we have defined and explained what that means above). People who have a sexual interest in children in principle pose a risk of very serious harm to children. We recognise that the likelihood of such a risk eventuating in the appellant’s case is towards the lowest end of the scale for people with such an interest, but it cannot be discounted. Although he has done some work to address that risk through Safer Lives, and will do more now through the rehabilitation order to which he is now subject following his conviction, much more time will need to pass without further incident or relapse before the risk that the appellant poses could in our judgment be regarded as having significantly reduced. We are in any event concerned with the position as it was at the point in time that DBS took its decision. That was only about a year after the appellant’s arrest.

We have considered whether the risk that the appellant poses to children could reasonably have been prevented or reduced by other means. However, there were no other measures available to DBS, and at the time of DBS’s decision no other authority had taken any action in relation to the appellant at all. We are therefore satisfied that, at the time of DBS’s decision, barring was the only means of addressing the risk posed. Now there is an SHPO in place, which is a change of circumstances that might affect the balance of the proportionality decision, but that is not a matter for us on this appeal.

That leaves the question of whether the severity of the effects of the decision to bar on the appellant are outweighed by the objective of barring in his case. We are satisfied that they are. Although the appellant has been prevented from continuing in the profession in which he and his family had invested time and money in him training and qualifying, and in which he wanted to work, his age, cognitive ability and level of education are such that, even at the time of DBS’ decision, it could reasonably be anticipated he would in time find alternative employment (even taking into account his ASD). As a matter of fact, he has found alternative employment. DBS in its decision also correctly identified that other aspects of the appellant’s private and family life and reputation would be affected. We are satisfied that the decision to bar in this case struck the appropriate balance between the appellant’s private rights and the public interest in the protection of children.

For all these reasons, we conclude that there was no mistake of law or fact in DBS’ decision and we dismiss the appeal.