UK Prosecution II

12/11/04

Thames Valley College Ltd pleaded guilty to an offence under the provisions of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 Section 14 and were fined £1000 with £1640 costs.

The offence was 'recklessly making a false statement as to the provision of a service'

In this case the College prospectus offered degrees from the University of North America, stating it to be a leading distance learning body based in Missouri.

In fact it was an llc registered by the directors of the UK company and had no teaching staff, no US based accreditation and only a mailbox office in the US. The investigation included contacts with the FBI to gather evidence in America.

Charges against the individual directors were dropped when it was accepted that they had not written the prospectus themselves and had intended to obtain accreditation.

(In brief explanation:- this charge is one that partially reverses the burden of proof and equates to a breach of a duty of care. Businesses are expected to have procedures to prevent mistakes like this and have to prove 'mistake or accident' if they do occur. In this case the directors had relied on a third party to produce the brochure and had made no checks on the result).

 

I'm pleased that the UK officials are apparently trying to do something. I'm disappointed if that's really a highlight of what they can accomplish. I'm afraid that they need more assistance from parliament in the form of some better laws.

 

Better laws would help, however there are other considerations that had to be taken into account.

 

newspaper article

http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/templates/news/detail.cfm?newsid=3450

 

Thanks for this.

The intriguing news here is that appears that diploma mill king Edward Reddeck, who has already served 3 prison terms for his many phonies, is back in business. University of North America is a name he uses, and he operates from Missouri, so the odds are high.

 

In this case the company was registered to the UK residents - I do not know of any connection with Mr R.