“on the grounds that the person is unsuitable to work with children”
“19. I confess that I have some slight concern about the language there used. Of course, it is right that the Tribunal is reviewing the Secretary of State’s decision, and clearly if it was not a reasonable decision then the Tribunal will interfere. But, as it seems to me, the Tribunal has its own independent judgment to exercise. It looks at the material that was before the Secretary of State and it decides, on that material, whether in its judgment the relevant prohibition or the relevant sanction was or was not one which ought to have been, in its view, imposed. It may be that one can say, if one is talking in strict judicial review terms, that the decision of the Secretary of State was reasonable in the sense that it is one which was open to him. But that would mean, if that is the narrow basis upon which the Tribunal approaches the matter, that it is disabled from exercising its own judgment. It is the exercise of its own judgment that is important. But, as the regulation makes clear, that judgment may be exercised upon and only upon the material that was before the Secretary of State. So with that slight qualification, I accept the approach that Dyson LJ has indicated based upon the decision of the Tribunal in FH .”
“38. Regulation 13(2) provides that the Tribunal shall not, in exercising its powers under regulation 13, consider any information relevant to the decision to give a direction which the Secretary of State did not have at the time the decision was made … 39. Thus the Tribunal is, in this instance, confined to conducting a review of the decision made by the Secretary of State. The Tribunal is not empowered to re-hear the case or to determine the primary facts. It is required, in effect to decide whether the Secretary of State had sufficient evidence upon which to base a determination that the specified ground relied upon existed and, further, to decide whether the direction was an appropriate or proportionate response in all of the circumstances known to the Secretary of State.”
“14. There is nothing within the Legislative framework that, in my view, restricts the tribunal in the way envisaged by O’H and argued by the Secretary of State. Regulations 12 and 13 set the ground rules for the Appeal, they do not change the nature of an Appeal read in its common context, and as applied by the Tribunal in all its other jurisdictions, to that of a review. 15. Thus in my view a Tribunal is entitled to hear evidence in respect of the information that was available to he Secretary of State and determine whether at the time the matter was considered by the Secretary of State, the Appellant falls into one of the grounds specified under section 142(4) and, if so, whether a direction should be made under section 142(1). The Tribunal is entitled to make its own decision on the former and exercise its own discretion on the latter. It is after all an expert Tribunal and as has been emphasised in many reported decisions, cases that look strong on paper can alter considerably once oral evidence has been heard.”
“Regulation 12 clearly confers a right of appeal to a tribunal and not merely a right to apply for a review and therefore, in our view, a tribunal is entitled to rehear the case and, in a case where there is a dispute as to the facts, make findings that are different from those made by the Secretary of State. We find it difficult to reconcile some of the language used by the tribunal in FH and by Dyson LJ in JN with the concept of an appeal. On an appeal, the issue is not just whether the Secretary of State’s decision was reasonable in the sense that it was one he was entitled to take but also whether it was, in the tribunal’s judgment, the right decision. There is nothing in the legislation to suggest that the tribunal is not entitled to substitute its own judgment for that of the Secretary of State in those cases where more than one conclusion can properly be reached on any matter. FH may have been a clear enough case where no conclusion other than the Secretary of State’s would have been reasonable. Significantly, it was also a case determined without any oral evidence. JN may also have been a clear case and certainly, on the appeal to the Administrative Court, it appears to have been unnecessary for Dyson LJ to consider the possibility that two views might fairly be taken of the evidence. Moreover, the passage we have set out was strictly speaking unnecessary for his decision. We are satisfied that this tribunal is not confined to carrying out a review.”
“we consider that little weight should be placed on the fact that that the allegations were of a similar nature”
“36. … it is common ground that the evidence of each complainant was, subject to the judgment of the tribunal, of supporting the others. In ordinary language, the Secretary of State was entitled to ask the tribunal what was the likelihood of three separate teenagers making similar but untrue allegations of sexual misconduct on separate and unconnected occasions … 37. … In assessing the probative force of the evidence, the tribunal of fact will need to consider at least three things. Firstly, the risk of collaboration or contamination between the witnesses. If there was such a risk, then the probative force of the observation that they make similar complaints may be lost. Secondly, the degree of similarity between the allegations and the period of time over which those allegations were made. The more similar the allegations made by individuals who had not collaborated, the more improbable it is that those allegations are untrue. Thirdly, any factors which may affect the credibility and reliability of the complainant. It may be that a witness is so unreliable that nothing said by that witness should be treated as probative of anything.”