UT UA-2024-000745-V - [2025] UKUT 129 (AAC)

Our approach to the case

We heard evidence from SLS as we are entitled to do: Disclosure and Barring Service v JHB [2023] EWCA Civ 982 at [95]. She had the chance to say anything she wished about the findings made by DBS. She also answered questions from the panel and from Mr Wilkinson. Having heard that evidence, we approached the case in accordance with the decision of the Court of Appeal in RI v Disclosure and Barring Service [2024] 1 WLR 4033. Bean LJ there approved at [29] the submission by counsel for RI at [28] that ‘the Upper Tribunal is entitled to hear oral evidence from an appellant and to assess it against the documentary evidence on which the DBS based its decision.’ Later at [31], Bean LJ said that ‘where relevant oral evidence is adduced before the UT … the Tribunal may view the oral and written evidence as a whole and make its own findings of primary fact.’ And Males LJ said at [50] that the Upper Tribunal is ‘entitled to evaluate that evidence, together with all the other evidence in the case …’

In deciding whether DBS made a mistake of fact or law, we had to consider the circumstances as they were at the date of DBS’s decision, which was 29 April 2024. See SD v Disclosure v Barring Service [2024] UKUT 249 (AAC). We are entitled to take account of evidence that was not before DBS, provided that it can be related back to that date.

For proportionality, we followed the approach set out in Section V of KS.

Evidence