Independent Safeguarding Authority

[Boisdeslandes]

Does anybody know where an individual can get help to try and get themselves removed from this new listing of those that are barred from working with children and professional adults?

[daffy654]

Why has the person been placed on the list in the first place?
If they have been proven to be a risk to children or vulnerable adults then there is no way they will get their name removed from the list.

[Boisdeslandes]

It is a long story but basically the 'employer' claimed certain things, none of which were proven in the eyes of the law but when the employer could not get the police to take action he was so obsessed he went to social services and on the basis of his word against my friends my friend was put on the list. He is of no risk to anyone especially given the fact that he didn't do what was said. At the time my mate got advice from a solicitor who basically said it just wouldn't happen but it did. Now 4 years on he feels strong enough to challenge the decision but doesn't know how to.

[daffy654]

Your friend needs to seek legal advice again from a different solicitor to the one he saw last time.

[Buenchico]

Quote:
"Individuals placed on the ISA Barred Lists will have the right to make representations against the decision and also to the Care Standards Tribunal, except where they have committed a serious offence".

Source:
http://www.crb.homeof...d_barring_scheme.aspx

Appeal form here:
http://www.carestanda...l/UT10_ISAappeals.pdf

Chris

[New Judge]

Your friend’s situation demonstrates perfectly the dangers of a system which retains details of allegations against individuals when those allegations have not been subject to rigorous tests to high standards.

More and more people in the UK are now seen as “unsuitable” for various occupations and positions on the basis of often unfounded and sometimes even malicious allegations and they have to “appeal” to have those allegations removed from their “record” – a record which should not even exist.

A few weeks ago it was reported that a mother was threatened with having an incident recorded on her “file” for up to fourteen years. The allegation was that she behaved unacceptably towards her child who was misbehaving in a supermarket. No doubt had the threat been carried out she would now be in the same position as your friend.

It is a scandal that such records are kept about individuals unless the allegations are to be tested to criminal standard – beyond reasonable doubt. At present that is not the case and innocent people (or, as the authorities would like us to believe, those who are “not quite guilty enough” to be convicted) are being disadvantaged and discriminated against in large numbers.

[Boisdeslandes]

What I really don't understand is how this can happen to someone and how many people is it happening too? My friend finds himself unable to work in any kind of decent field due to what has happened. It seems so difficult to find a way to challenge a decision which is basically made by bureaucratics based on unsubstantiate information in this case.

[New Judge]

It can happen because successive governments (and this one in particular) seem obsessed with recording every last detail of people’s lives, spying on them, subjecting them to surveillance and providing numerous bodies with the legislation to do all this. This legislation has been passed by supine MPs, more concerned with obeying the party whips than representing the interests of their constituents when faced with an over-zealous executive.

Of course, immediately up will pop the “if it saves one child from abuse” lobby. But the trouble is this type of intrusion does not save one child from abuse. All it does is makes the lives of innocent people such as your friend so difficult. Put simply, there is no balance between the need to protect children from harm and the levels to which the State thinks it should go to in order to achieve their aims.

Last year the European Court ruled that the practice of retaining DNA information taken from innocent people was illegal. The government has still to make a satisfactory response to this ruling and meanwhile the law continues to be broken. Similarly the practice on which your friend finds himself on the wrong end will have to be challenged outside the UK because the current UK government is simply unable to distinguish between what is proportional and what is not.

Meanwhile your friend (and many others) continues to suffer from a ruling into which he did not have an input, was not given a chance to challenge at the outset and which he will find extremely difficult to have overturned.

[Boisdeslandes]

You are right it is Governments watching their backs and not actually thinking the consequences of their actions. Someone like my friend has so much to give and yet has had all that taken away from him and as a result his own children are now suffering. So much for protecting the children. I know what you are saying about it being hard to overturn. Our problem is we don't even know where to start. I have read the relevant websires but they are simply full of info about the ISA rather than providing any info which would help anyone challenge their decisions. Someone somewhere must be able to challenge this kind of decision and if this can be done for one person then perhaps many others will benefit.