[2025] UKUT 238 (AAC)

AB’s oral evidence was that she brought service user SA, in a wheelchair, downstairs in the lift, to use the shower downstairs, as he was “soaking wet” (and the shower upstairs, where SA slept, was broken); her evidence was that SA had been covered with a towel, but SA had thrown it off; thus AB’s account was somewhat different from that understood at the time of the permission decision (that SA had come downstairs on his own, such that the situation (of the service being undressed in an open area) was not one of AB’s choosing, and AB was trying to mitigate it). AB’s oral evidence was in this respect more in line with the documentary evidence: the investigation meeting notes of 23 February 2023 also indicated that AB had taken SA downstairs (page 44 of the bundle).

In cross examination, AB accepted that SA had no top on during this incident.

As for the documentary evidence as to what SA was wearing:

It is also evident from the documentary evidence (pages 44-45 and 62-64 of the bundle) that, during the course of this incident, MM confronted AB and told her to cover up the service user, and that AB responded in a dismissive manner, telling MM to “go away”.

On our weighing up of the evidence, this incident involved AB bringing service user SA downstairs, to a relatively public area within the home, wearing only his pad and with a towel draped over him, which he threw off in the course of the incident (we prefer the documentary evidence as to what SA was wearing, given that AB’s account of this incident was inconsistent in some of the details). It is also clear that AB refused MM’s instruction to cover SA up. It follows, in our view, that there was no mistake in DBS finding that