AK v Disclosure and Barring Service: [2024] UKUT 408 (AAC)
Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber decision by Judge Church on 10 December 2024.
Read the full decision in .
Judicial Summary
The Appellant was a doctor working in the emergency department of a hospital. Allegations were made by three patients that the Appellant sexually assaulted them under the guise of a medical examination. The Appellant was charged with sexual assault, but the CPS issued a notice of discontinuance in relation to the charges, although the case was not closed by the police.
The DBS decided to place the Appellant’s name on both barred lists on the basis that he had engaged in ‘regulated activity’ in his role as a doctor, and he had sexually assaulted 3 patients in his care, and this amounted to ‘relevant conduct’ in relation both to children and vulnerable adults.
The evidence relied upon by DBS in finding that the Appellant sexually assaulted the patients under his care was very weak, being untested second or third hand hearsay. It didn’t even have the complainants’ ABE interviews. AK gave oral evidence before the Upper Tribunal, which was tested under cross-examination.
In the light of the fresh evidence before it, the Upper Tribunal found that the DBS had based its decision to bar the Appellant on material mistakes of fact. It accepted the Appellant’s evidence that, while he had touched each patient close to her breasts and had touched her pubic bone, this was part of a standard systemic examination appropriate to the symptoms with which they had presented and was not sexually motivated.
It directed the DBS to remove the Appellant’s name from both barred lists.