Doctor Clears False Sexual Allegation from Enhanced DBS Certificate
The Situation:
What Our Client Was Facing
Our client was a doctor who was accused of sexual misconduct involving a neighbour’s child. The allegation, which was false, was made by the child’s parent.
The police spoke to our client without arresting him. His account was clear and consistent, and the allegation did not stand up against it. He had never been alone with the child at any point, and the child’s wider circumstances involved difficulties that had nothing to do with him. Concerns that belonged elsewhere appear to have been projected onto our client. The matter was closed with no action taken against him.
Being cleared, however, did not end the matter. The allegation remained on police systems. A referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service raised the question of barring, which we successfully resisted on his behalf. The allegation then appeared on his Enhanced DBS certificate. As our guide on allegations on Enhanced DBS certificates explains, an allegation can be disclosed as relevant police information even where the investigation was closed without action.
The consequences for our client were serious. An allegation of this nature on an Enhanced DBS certificate would very likely have cost him his job.
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Our Approach:
How We Challenged the Caution
We challenged the disclosure through the police. As our guide on how to challenge information on an Enhanced DBS certificate explains, the police must be satisfied that information is reliable, relevant and proportionate before it belongs on a certificate. A false allegation, rejected on investigation, could not properly clear that bar — and our representations took each limb in turn.
- We showed the allegation had collapsed under scrutiny: The complainant’s account had fallen apart when tested against our client’s responses. This was not an unresolved question mark — it was an allegation that had failed.
- We established that the opportunity never existed: Our client had never been alone with the child. The factual foundation the allegation required simply was not there.
- We showed where the concerns really belonged: The child’s circumstances involved difficulties among others in the child’s life. Anxieties arising from those difficulties appeared to have attached themselves to our client — a projection, not an accusation grounded in anything he had done.
- We relied on the outcomes already reached: The police had closed the matter without action, and the DBS had considered barring and declined. Disclosing the same allegation on his certificate sat uneasily with both.
- We addressed proportionality: Disclosure would end a medical career — the gravest professional consequence available, resting on an allegation that had been tested and rejected at every stage.
An allegation of this kind does not need to be true to destroy a career. It only needs to appear on a certificate. Our task was to make sure the legal tests were applied properly before that happened permanently.
The Outcome:
How We Helped
The disclosure was withdrawn at the police review stage, before the dispute needed to be referred to the Independent Monitor. The information was removed and a clean certificate was issued.
For our client, the result meant his career survived. An allegation that had failed on investigation, failed at the barring stage, and finally failed at the disclosure stage was no longer standing between him and his work.
He was able to continue practising without the most damaging allegation imaginable following him through every future check.
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Why This Case Mattered — and What Others Can Learn
This case shows that being cleared is not the same as being free of an allegation. Our client was cleared by the police investigation. He was not barred by the DBS. And still the allegation reached his Enhanced DBS certificate, where it had to be fought a third time. Each of those decisions is made separately, and each has to be won separately.
It also shows that false allegations can be defeated with the right approach. The instinct is often despair — how do you disprove something that never happened? The answer is that the legal tests do the work: reliability, relevance and proportionality. An allegation that has collapsed under scrutiny cannot properly satisfy them, and representations that demonstrate this methodically can succeed.
If an allegation has been disclosed on your Enhanced DBS certificate, Legisia’s Enhanced DBS Certificate Appeals service can assess whether there is a realistic basis to challenge it.
Can a false allegation appear on my Enhanced DBS certificate even after the police cleared me?
Yes. The disclosure decision is separate from the investigation, and even allegations the police closed without action can be proposed for disclosure. But the investigation’s own conclusions are often the strongest ammunition for challenging it.
What happens if the police refuse to remove disputed information from my certificate?
If the police maintain the disclosure at the review stage, the dispute is referred to the Independent Monitor, who examines whether the information meets the tests for disclosure. In this case, the disclosure was withdrawn before that stage was needed.
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