A number of overseas students that were accused of cheating at English language tests have launched legal proceedings against the Home Office, seeking compensation for their loss of earnings and unlawful detention. 

Important new evidence has recently been presented in court, raising new questions about the Home Office’s decision to accuse over 30,000 students of cheating. The accusation led to thousands of students being thrown off their courses, 2500 students were deported, and 7200 left the country after being told that they would be facing arrest and detention if they stayed.  

Ten years ago, the BBC broadcast a Panorama investigation, which uncovered widespread cheating in Home Office-approved test centres offering English-language tests that international students were required to pass as part of their visa renewal process. 

Theresa May, who was home secretary at the time, described the BBC report as “shocking” and asked the US-based test provider, Educational Testing Service (ETS) to investigate. ETS then concluded that 97% of its English tests taken in the UK between 2011 and 2014 were in some way “suspicious” and therefore, the Home Office cancelled the visas of around 35,000 students. 

The National Audit Office in 2019 stated that the Home Office “did not have the expertise to validate the results” that were provided by the ETS. 

The charity Migrant Voice has been publicly working with students since 2017 to make sure that they get compensation for revoking their Visas. 

The law firm Bindmans currently represents 23 students who have already won their immigration appeals and overturned the Home Office’s decision to cancel their visas amid cheating allegations.  

Alice Hardy, a partner at Bindmans, said; “Our clients have been through hell. The Home Office deliberately concealed from them the fact that they had been accused of cheating, denying them the opportunity to defend themselves, and instead removed their immigration status with no in-country right of appeal. They lost everything as a result; homes, livelihoods, the right to work, study and pay rent. They suffered the shame and rejection of their families, relationship breakdowns, destitution and the torment of seeing everything they had worked for taken away from them. These situations persisted for up to 10 years and caused untold suffering. It is now apparent that the allegations were based on thin evidence.” 

Nomi Raja was 22 when immigration officers raided his student house in June 2014. “They asked me for my ID. Then this guy had a radio, and he was like: ‘Target achieved.’” 

It was only when Nomi arrived at a detention centre at Gatwick Airport when an officer eventually explained why he had been arrested: “She’s like, ‘You’ve done Toeic (Test of English for International Communication), you have cheated and then we are sending you back to Pakistan’.”  

Nomi managed to delay his deportation and was finally released after 125 days. But like others who protested their innocence, he was banned from working, studying or using the NHS. 

An ETS spokesperson has said that the company’s people and practices have changed; “ETS’s work in the UK is focused on supporting those seeking to study abroad in the UK and the universities that host them.” 

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