Students arrested for fraud after cheating in exam
A University of York student has been convicted of fraud after persuading a friend to sit one of his final exams for him. The court was told that the student acted out of desperation and “suffered something of a breakdown” in the run-up to his exams. YUSU has prevented nouse from naming him.
The interational third-year Economics student was convicted by York Magistrates Court on May 16 along with his accomplice Xin Zhang, a student from Birmingham to whom he is not related.
Both men were arrested at Central Hall on May 11 at the end of a Business Finance exam. Two other men, one of whom is a York student, were also arrested in a similar but unconnected incident. The other pair were released on bail until June 8, when a decision will be made on what, if any, charges will be brought against them.
The attempted fraud was discovered when exam invigilators noted that the man in the exam bore little resemblance to the photograph on his University card. the student’s tutor, Dr. Patrick Marsh, was called to the exam hall to identify the student and confirmed it was not his tutee. The student was later found “loitering agitatedly” outside the exam and was arrested. Both men admitted the deception to police.
John Howard, the lawyer representing both defendants, told the court that the student had struggled academically for his entire university career and did not feel he could face his final exams.
In a statement to police, Marsh said the student had missed a number of supervisory meetings and that “his lack of diligence academically had been drawn to my attention two or three times”.
Howard described the pair’s plan as “clearly unsophisticated” and said no money had been involved. Xin does not even study economics and felt he had done “particularly badly” in his friend’s exam.
Howard said that both of their academic careers were in ruins and that it was likely they would “return to China with their tails between their legs”. The Home Office has been informed of the incident and both may face deportation.
When sentencing the pair, Chair of the Bench Joan Visick described the case as “a rather nasty thing of fraud, totally unacceptable”. She sentenced both men to 100 hours of community service and to pay £35 in prosecution expenses. Qiu and Xin were both warned that failure to attend community service would result in their re-arrest and a harsher sentence. Both men were given credit for admitting the deception to police and for pleading guilty in the first instance.
The two York students who were arrested during the exam have been suspended and excluded from classes. A final decision on their academic careers is pending an ongoing University investigation.
the York student and Xin met in their home province of Guangdong, near Hong Kong. Shortly before his finals, the student called Xin and persuaded him to come to York to sit the exam for him.
One of the student’s neighbours in Hickleton Court, Halifax, said he was an isolated figure whom she saw rarely.
“I don’t see him at all really. I haven’t seen him for the last few weeks,” she said.
The student spent a lot of time in Loughborough, where he had a girlfriend. Like many Chinese students, he adopted a British name.
The incident has prompted questions over whether international students receive the academic support they need. YUSU Academic Welfare Officer Amy Foxton said: “I think international students often suffer from more problems in this area. A higher proportion of them get accused of things like academic misconduct. The University needs to give its international students enough support and not just take their fees from them.”
Last year, there were 68 cases of academic misconduct in which students were formally warned that another offence would result in their expulsion.
Of these, 15 were cases in which a student was caught cheating in a University exam.
