[2025] UKUT 228 (AAC)

VMAC confirmed the contents of his written witness statements dated 20 September 2024 (pages 273-5 of bundle), 17 October 2024 (page 317 of bundle), 05 November 2024 (pages 338-42 of bundle) and 08 April 2025.

VMAC told us he worked as a tenancy support worker at AC from April 2022 to October 2022. He worked with homeless clients, helping them with applying for benefits, managing their money, budgeting skills and keeping a tenancy, because some of them were living in the streets or rough sleeping for several years and had never had their own tenancies. The criteria for a service user to be eligible for AC’s support was that they had been referred by the local authority and had to have some kind of need in terms of either being homeless, or problems with drug and / or alcohol misuse, and sometimes they might have a history of separation, children in care proceedings, or domestic violence. They could stay in AC properties for a maximum of 2 years.

VMAC told us LC was his line manager at AC, and also at AT, the company he worked for before moving to AC. VMAC started work at AT in May 2020, during the pandemic, as housing agency staff, and then joined AT permanently in August 2020. He left in in April 2022 to join AC. The work at AT had involved working at three different sites in different towns, with more clients. The work itself was similar. During the pandemic, VMAC’s work at AT included health and safety checks and making sure clients were ok. At AT, VMAC was the key worker for an average of 15 clients and might be called on to help in emergencies and different situations, for example, tenants causing disruption, problems with their neighbours, causing damage to property. His work involved a lot of working on his own, one to one with clients.

VMAC told us he left AT to find a job closer to him, and lived in the town where AC was based. LC was his line manager at AT from November 2020 until around December 2021. She was a senior housing worker and VMAC was a housing worker during that time. LC continued as VMAC’s line manager at AC. At AC, VMAC had an average of 10 clients, occasionally more, but things could change very quickly. It was a small team and VMC had to cover for other colleagues and then meet their clients along with his own.

VMAC told us that after he received his conditional caution, LC helped to accommodate him because he was homeless. VMAC then lived in a hostel and carried on working for AC. He was allowed to carry on working at AC after this. When VMAC applied for the role at AC, he told them from the outset about the conditional caution. VMAC offered to apply for a new DBS certificate, which was delayed from April to September 2022. AC allowed VMAC to work immediately and put in the risk assessment. VMAC was also buddied with a colleague.

When asked by the Tribunal what he had learned from the courses he had undertaken after his caution, VMAC described that the husband and wife should be in charge of the family home and should act as a united team deciding what is wrong and right. VMAC stated one of the main things that had failed in his relationship with his wife and led to the main family breakdown was that they were not in sync. VMAC said the parenting course was helpful but at the same time, his wife and mother-in-law (MS) could not see issues the same way that he saw them, and from his point of view, VMAC felt like a stranger in the family home.

Asked about the Eve course for perpetrators of domestic violence, VMAC said that he learned mainly how to deal with children’s tantrums and to accept what was wrong and right in a relationship in terms of abuse. He told us he learned how to control his emotions, how to keep calm and how to have a good relationship with his wife and how to listen to the children as well as how to keep calm in difficult situations where other people might expect a reaction out of him.

While he accepted he had hit his stepson on 28 November 2021, VMAC denied hitting or emotionally abusing his family members. He said he did a one-off offence, which he regretted and had lost his temper.

When asked about references in the bundle to other situations in his domestic life that social services found concerning, VMAC described his stepson and mother-in-law coming from a different country and said he had acted with his best intentions for them to be a family. VMAC said his wife’s family’s religion (Jehovah’s Witnesses), the racial differences between him and his new family (his mother-in-law did not approve of VMAC being white) and the pandemic, caused tension in the family. He said he received verbal abuse from his mother-in-law, which later also started from his wife. This showed cracks in the family. VMAC said his wife and mother-in-law started dictating how to raise the children and finances. He said that they showed no respect for him as the man of the house and so he felt like a stranger, disrespected, in his own home.

When asked about what the bundle contained in terms of stated problems in the household, VMAC said he did not remember any other incident where he was abusive to his family members, and he disagreed with the records from social services. The Tribunal asked about the wording of the Child and Family assessment document dated 22 May 2023 about his verbal communication and behaviours, which appeared to involve VMAC admitting some other behaviours of pushing his stepson and clenching his fist (see pages 107 to 108 of bundle). VMAC said he did not recall admitting to this with social services but that he did admit he was remorseful about the incident on 28 November 2021.