London, Feb 3 (ANI): Karl Woodgett, former registrar at the University of Surrey and the University of Bath, offered bogus degrees to women in return for spanking sessions, a British court has heard.
Woodgett, 37, introduced himself to women as Dave and offered them a degree if they would help him with a "pain management study". The spanking sessions with two women from Cameroon were videotaped.
Woodgett pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make false instruments, university degrees in this case and two counts of possessing articles for the use of fraud - two blank degree certificates from the University of Bath.
He was sentenced to nine months of imprisonment, suspended for a year, and ordered to complete 200 hours of community work.
The Bristol Crown Court heard that Woodgett began to fake degree certificates for relatives of his Cameroonian ex-wife Delphine Kah, 31, while working at the University of Surrey.
Kah was given a four-month prison sentence and suspended for a year after she also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make false documents and was.
"He did not want Kah for sex but to indulge his spanking fetish with her because she had a black bottom," Times Online quoted James Ward, prosecuting for the UK Border Agency, as telling the court.
Woodgett asked for prices ranging from 500pounds for a 2.2 undergraduate degree to 1,000pound for a Master's with distinction.
Ward said: "This was the start of a mail-order business run along the lines of a fast-food takeaway, where customers recorded their orders with a number."
Using a colleague's password Woodgett inserted the names of bogus candidates into a degree database for approval by senior officials at the University of Bath's senate meetings. hereafter, he obtained blank degree certificates by claiming he was conducting a printing review.
In 2008 he asked two Cameroonian women from Bath, Elsie Neh and Mbone Kemba to take part in a "pain management study". He videotaped their spanking and caning sessions, which were done with consent and paid the women for their time.
He also suggested rewarding them with bogus university degree certificates that were later found on his computer.
"He took Elsie to a hotel in Bath where various things took place of a sexual nature which he told her were for carrying out research," Ward said.
Judge David Ticehurst said Woodgett was guilty of a clear breach of trust.
He said: "It goes to the root of what universities are about, and if they have administrators such as you who are prepared to falsify documents then the whole point of that purpose is undermined.
"You have already suffered immense personal loss as a result of your actions. You have lost your job, career, professional reputation and your marriage."
Detective Constable Steve Magee, of the UK Border Agency's immigration crime team, said: "This was a serious attempt by a corrupt individual, and his ex-wife, to abuse his position at two prestigious universities.
"We believe we stopped this scam in its tracks before people could cheat their way to a qualification they didn't deserve. We are also confident that a conspiracy to defraud the UK's immigration system was stopped." (ANI)
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