It is absolutely not the case that any student anywhere has ever been "criminally charged" or "reported" to any academic institution by any UK government entity, notwithstanding the repeated false statements by two posters here to the contrary. That's because the legislation at issue expressly and quite clearly
excludes students from any liability under that law. There is no such thing as any law in the UK "pertaining to the
hiring of essay mills." The Skills and Post-16 Law to which you're referring pertains to
running an essay mill and/or
providing academic work for submission by others, not to the
purchase of such work by students or by anybody else.
Anybody who believes otherwise should have no problem simply posting a link or any other relevant reference capable of being accessed by others to any report, anywhere, of such a criminal case or of any report of any student, anywhere, ever having been "reported" to any academic institution in connection with government enforcement action under any UK law taken against essay mills. It is unnecessary to engage in any kind of nasty argument, personal insults, or accusations, because anybody who claims that he knows of such cases against
students should simply be able to provide the factual evidence to support his claim, and without being defensive about it.
This, right here, is a link to the official policy-notes guidance published by the UK Government about the legislation at the time that it was first proposed and whether it "pertains" to students, at all:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/619d1516e90e0704439f41c7/Skills_and_Post-16_Education_Bill_November_2021_policy_notes.pdfOn page 58, that guidance explicitly provides the following statement in question-and-answer format:
"Will this new legislation criminalise students who use these services? No. The offence is intended to target those providing essay mills commercially - it will not criminalise students who have used or are using these services. ... The Department for Education has been working closely with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the CPS to ensure that students that use essay mills are excluded from any liability by virtue of this legislation."Furthermore, and again, contrary to repeated statements of several posters on this forum, the legislation in question is utterly inapplicable and totally irrelevant, even to any essay company, except those actually physically located in England or Wales:
On page 57, that guidance provides the following statement, on that specific point:
"The Bill extends to England and Wales and applies in relation to England only. In practice, this means that the offences can be committed in England and Wales..."Of course, students around the globe (hardly just in the UK) have managed, forever, to get themselves charged with violations of academic institutional ethics policies and institutional honor codes in various ways, such as by plagiarizing or by submitting suspiciously good work to professors who were already quite familiar with their writing abilities. None of that has anything to do with any criminal legislation, in general, or with the UK Skills and Post-16 Education Law, in particular. If anyone here believes otherwise, he should simply provide the source of his factual statement to the contrary to support his claim.