Meltdown at Melton

Melton Mowbray College accepted fees from a suspected illegal immigrant despite clear warnings from entry clearance officials that she might have obtained her student visa by deception.

Melton Mowbray's client services manager, Chris Eveling, was warned by the British High Commission in Sri Lanka that a prospective overseas student might have used a "forged or deliberately deceptive" letter in support of her visa application. Despite this warning, and despite earlier warnings that the college was being targeted by bogus students, Melton Mowbray enrolled her and then went on to collect her course fees.

The Colombo High Commission told the college in December 1998 that the student should not be studying at Melton Mowbray as she had originally obtained a student visa to study elsewhere. Entry clearance officer Rob Ostler warned the college: "Her application was supported by a letter... purporting to be written from Sri Lanka [offering sponsorship for her studies]. It would appear that this letter was forged or deliberately deceptive and that [she] obtained her visa by deception. We will be compiling a report for the Home Office. It is of course your decision whether you enrol her or not."

Ken Masters, principal of Melton Mowbray College, said this week that it was the college that originally informed the High Commission of the student's arrival at Melton Mowbray in autumn 1998, and that the student was enrolled at the college before it received the warning about her status.

"It is clear that enrolment took place well before any communication was received from [the High Commission]," he said. "She had been at the college a month and had paid a fee. There was no basis upon which we could send her away. The authorities have known since November 1998 where she is."

But The THES has learned that although the student had enrolled at Melton before the High Commission's warning, she did not pay any fees until after the warning was received. The college accepted a Pounds 300 payment towards the student's Pounds 500-a-month tuition fees almost two months after the warning, in late January 1999.

The new revelations come just weeks after The THES revealed that Melton had been targeted by illegal immigrants posing as genuine overseas students, and that "human smugglers" were providing forged qualifications and financial documents to get immigrants enrolled on college courses.

Problems with overseas students are not the only controversies the college has faced recently:

* Melton College was named last week as one of eight colleges with "weak financial controls" by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts

* The clerk to the college's board, Denise Reed, is a friend and neighbour of Melton principal, Ken Masters, and works as a marketing consultant for the college, despite rules that clerks should be sufficiently independent of management. Mr Masters said that Ms Reed has only ever performed her clerking duties "in an independent mode". He said that although he is "pleased to be friends with all residents" of the small village where he lives, he said that he did not know Ms Reed when he moved next door to her.

* David Agnew, a close family friend of client services manager Mr Eveling, has just been employed in the college's marketing department. Mr Masters denied that this was inappropriate or in breach of the college's rules. He said that Mr Agnew was interviewed by the chair of governors, and was suitably qualified

* Principal Ken Masters and the college's governors had to admit that they unfairly dismissed vice-principal David Stangroom in 1993, when they pulled out on the first day of a five-day industrial tribunal hearing in 1993. The case was settled out of court.

Want to blow the whistle?

Contact Phil Baty on 0171 782 3298 or email him on Phil.Baty@newsint.co.uk