JR v Disclosure and Barring Service (Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups - proportionality) [2025] UKUT 400 (AAC) (03 December 2025)

Executive summary

The Upper Tribunal allowed JR’s appeal against DBS’s decision to keep him on the adults’ barred list under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. It held that the statutory test for regulated activity was satisfied, but that including him on the adults’ barred list was disproportionate, and it directed DBS to remove him from that list.

Key points

• Parties: JR appealed against the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
• Holding: DBS had made a mistake in law; the Tribunal ordered JR removed from the adults’ barred list.
• Reasoning: JR’s prior work with vulnerable adults was short, historic (2012–2013), and stop-gap only; he had not worked or volunteered with vulnerable adults since and said he had no intention to do so.
• The decision also records that the conduct relied on was tied to incidents involving JR’s children, not an adult.
• The Tribunal applied section 4 SVGA and Article 8 proportionality; it found inclusion disproportionate even though regulated activity was made out.
• No sanctions/export-control angle appears in the source text; the case is a domestic safeguarding and barring decision.

Why it matters

The judgment shows the Upper Tribunal will scrutinize the proportionality of barring decisions even where DBS establishes the statutory gateway. For national-security or sovereign-risk audiences, the relevance is indirect: it illustrates judicial limits on broad preventative exclusion powers and the evidential burden needed to justify restrictive status decisions.

Implications

For compliance and litigation strategy, DBS decisions cannot rely solely on historic or minimal regulated activity if the overall bar is vulnerable to proportionality challenge. Parties contesting barring outcomes should focus on the temporal remoteness of the regulated activity, the absence of any continuing role, and Article 8 proportionality, because the Tribunal can direct removal where it finds a legal mistake.