MK v Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) (Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups - fairness of DBS decision making) [2026] UKUT 159 (AAC) (04 April 2026)

Executive summary

The Upper Tribunal dismissed MK’s appeal and confirmed DBS’s 8 March 2021 barring decision under section 4(2) of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. It held that DBS did not make an error of law or mistake of fact, and specifically that the barring decision was not unfair because DBS did not give MK a further opportunity to provide supporting medical evidence of improved mental health.

Key points

• Parties: MK appealed against the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) in the Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber).
• Holding: appeal dismissed; DBS’s barring decision was confirmed.
• Reasoning: the tribunal accepted that DBS had considered MK’s mental health evidence and representations, including a letter from her care co-ordinator, and was not obliged to seek further medical evidence.
• Reasoning: the summary states the decision was not flawed by any failure to provide another chance to submit evidence showing improved mental health.
• Safeguarding context: the decision concerns barring from work with children and vulnerable adults under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.
• Sanctions/export-control angle: no direct sanctions or export-control issue appears in the judgment; the relevance is to safeguarding-style risk assessment and procedural fairness in protective screening decisions.

Why it matters

The case shows that DBS can rely on historical harmful conduct and mental-health risk assessment without being required to keep inviting an individual to bolster their case with fresh medical evidence. For national-security or sovereign-risk audiences, it is a useful illustration of how UK protective regimes sustain exclusion decisions on anticipated future risk rather than proven criminal conviction.

Implications

For compliance and litigation strategy, the decision supports the proposition that procedural fairness in barring cases does not necessarily require repeated opportunities to supplement the record where the decision-maker has already invited representations. Challenge efforts will need to focus on concrete legal or factual error in the existing material, rather than on an argument that DBS should have chased further evidence before barring.