Legal News

A Yorkshire college was raided and 10 members of its staff arrested on suspicion of UK immigration offences.
The UK Border Agency Criminal and Financial Investigation Team had made four arrests at Leeds Professional College, at Nelson House, in George Mann Road, shortly after 9am yesterday.
Six more arrests were made at separate residential addresses in South and West Yorkshire. Those arrested include eight Pakistani men and a British man and woman.
All were taken to police stations at various locations across West and South Yorkshire and Scotland for questioning.
Adrian Watkins, of the UK Border Agency’s criminal and financial investigation team, said the college was suspected of charging students, mostly from Pakistan, thousands of pounds for admission into the UK on student visas.
But the students failed to turn up to the classes and many worked illegally or disappear into the system he said. In the instant case the bogus college had only two students when it should have been almost 140 of them attending the classes.
Mr Watkins added the UK Border Agency criminal and financial investigation team have been carrying out a six-month investigation into Leeds Professional College which had culminated today in the arrest of a number of individuals from the college.
The majority of students were belonging from Pakistan and currently there were approximately 350 students registered with the college he said.
He urged current and former students or teachers from the college to come forward and give any information they could provide which would be kept confidential he added.
He said the long-term plan was to round up students who were not attending the college and dealt with accordingly.
In its prospectus, Leeds Professional College promotes courses in business and management, health and social care and English for international students.
It says students must attend a minimum of 80 per cent of classes and those who do not would be reported to the UK Border Agency.
In October, the chief executive of the UKBA Rob Whiteman defended its grip on foreign students abusing the system and pledged to crack down on bogus colleges promoting of illegal UK immigration.
Mr Whiteman said there had been a 21 per cent reduction in the number of student visas issued in the past year, with the figure going down from 262,000 in 2010-2011 to 205,000 in the last financial year.