KD v Disclosure and Barring Service

Facts

KD, who was 25 in the summer of 2022, had volunteered for about ten years at a heritage countryside railway, where he held a departmental leadership role. He was also a special constable with the county police and a local councillor. C1, aged 15, was a youth volunteer at the railway. In August 2022 C1 told a police constable by telephone, and had earlier told two people at the railway, that after a snapchat exchange about a shadowing opportunity KD had sent him a muted video of KD masturbating. C1 declined to give a formal statement. KD denied the allegation. The investigating police later confirmed that no further action would be taken after reviewing a report on KD's phone. Other complaints related to sexualised messages KD had sent to adult colleagues at the railway and to a fake Facebook account in which he posed as a woman. On 6 July 2025 the Disclosure and Barring Service included KD in the children's barred list under paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. It relied on three findings: that KD sent the video to a 15-year-old child (the paragraph 7a finding); that he sent unwanted sexualised messages to two colleagues; and that he used the fake account to send and request explicit material. The Upper Tribunal granted permission to appeal on one ground only: that the paragraph 7a finding was a mistake of fact.