HZ v Disclosure & Barring Service (Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups - Children's Barred List - Adults' Barred List) [2025] UKUT 416 (AAC) (12 December 2025)

Executive summary

The Upper Tribunal dismissed HZ’s appeal in part and allowed it in part. It upheld the Disclosure and Barring Service decision to keep her on the Adults’ Barred List, but found an error of fact and law in her inclusion on the Children’s Barred List and directed her removal from that list.

Key points

• Parties: HZ v Disclosure & Barring Service; appeal under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
• Holding: Adults’ Barred List inclusion confirmed; Children’s Barred List inclusion quashed/directed for removal
• Reasoning: no mistake of fact or law as to relevant conduct involving a vulnerable adult; mistake of fact and law as to the children’s list
• Context: DBS relied on a restraint incident involving a patient while HZ was working as a staff nurse; the Tribunal noted later Crown Court acquittal and ongoing NMC proceedings but said they did not prevent determination of the appeal
• No sanctions/export-control element appears in the decision; this is a safeguarding and regulated-activity barring case, not a foreign-policy or trade-control judgment

Why it matters

This decision is relevant to national-security-adjacent compliance only in the broad sense that it concerns exclusion from regulated activity where vulnerable persons may be at risk. It has no direct sanctions or export-control content, but it shows how UK authorities assess risk, evidence, and procedural fairness in preventive barring regimes.

Implications

For compliance teams, the case reinforces that DBS barring decisions can be sustained even where parallel criminal or professional proceedings are unresolved, but each barred list must be justified on its own statutory basis. For litigation strategy, it underscores the importance of challenging the specific factual and legal basis for each list separately, because success on one list does not necessarily displace the other.