diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 66b6b950e8..7dea6b92fc 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+3419.	[bug]		Memory leak on validation cancel. [RT #31869]
+
 3418.   [func]          New XML schema (version 3.0) for the statistics channel 
 			adds query type statistics at the zone level, and 
 			flattens the XML tree and uses compressed format to 
diff --git a/lib/dns/validator.c b/lib/dns/validator.c
index 25424c1e63..f85125a199 100644
--- a/lib/dns/validator.c
+++ b/lib/dns/validator.c
@@ -4273,9 +4273,11 @@ dns_validator_cancel(dns_validator_t *validator) {
 	}
 	UNLOCK(&validator->lock);
 
-	/* Need to cancel fetch outside validator lock */
-	if (fetch != NULL)
+	/* Need to cancel and destroy the fetch outside validator lock */
+	if (fetch != NULL) {
 		dns_resolver_cancelfetch(fetch);
+		dns_resolver_destroyfetch(&fetch);
+	}
 }
 
 static void