‘97% seemed absurd’: Labour’s Stephen Timms on the English test scandal that wrecked lives

Stephen Timms is optimistic that the government will one day admit it made a huge mistake in assuming so many overseas students cheated in their English exams. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

There was one crucial statistic in the cheating allegations that the Home Office levelled against more than 35,000 overseas students that instantly alerted Labour MP Stephen Timms to the likely presence of a huge miscarriage of justice.

A dossier of evidence revealed that 97% of all international students who took a Home Office-approved English language test between 2011 and 2014 were suspected of cheating.