DBS Check

A school official tells a newly hired teacher she can start next term once her DBS check is done, explaining that the old records-only check revealed nothing about people who had simply never been caught. She is sent into a dark room where Clarence, a sinister examiner with a clipboard, quizzes her with multiple-choice scenarios in which one option is always predatory, treats every sensible answer as suspiciously clever, and pushes her to rate a line-up of children's photos that turns out to include his own childhood picture. When he asks her to choose between two atrocities she walks out, and back in the office she is told she has passed - only to be refused anyway on an absurd technicality.

DBS stands for the Disclosure and Barring Service, the UK body that runs criminal-record checks for people who work with children.