MP to meet council over private tuition fees investigation

[dutchman]

A Coventry MP will today ask local trading standards to speed up their investigation into a man running a private tuition firm out of Coventry accused of conning students out of thousands of pounds.



Officials first confirmed they were investigating Dr Vincent McKee and his company ICUT following a Sky News investigation in January.

Evidence was passed on to them from West Midlands Police, who decided not to launch their own investigation.

McKee, 52, offers private tuition through the University and Academy Tutors website (formally known as the Institute of Colleges and University Teachers) - and is accused of billing students and parents for far larger sums than they owe, and has since changed its name since the initial allegations came out.

One person contacted by the investigation team, who asked to remain anonymous, booked eight hours of lessons for her daughter at a cost of £35 per hour.

With the registration fee, the bill should have come to £380 – but the mother then discovered £3,260 had been taken from her account.

Student Ivie Ogodan claims she booked just £90 of tutorials through ICut, but after giving Dr McKee her credit card, £685 was removed from her account.

She said: “That money was for Christmas presents for my family. I called him several times to ask for my money back but he kept making excuses.”

“My sister and I went to Coventry and turned up on his doorstep and refused to leave. But he yelled at my sister and was rude and intimidating.”

In total, Sky News found five case studies suggesting ICut has taken a total of £5,559 from students’ accounts without authorisation, most of which they claim hasn’t been refunded.

However, Dr McKee, who has lectured at universities across the UK and is also a governor at two Coventry primary schools, refutes all the allegations, and in an exclusive interview with Mercia, called the investigation ‘rigged, nasty and prejudiced’.

In the case of Ivie Igodan, he told us: “The young lady turned out to be a Pure Maths student, and the person we allocated turned out to be an Applied Maths engineer.”

“The arrangement didn’t work out, but she accepted she had a very good first lesson. We agreed to refund her all but the first lesson, but that has been done.”

Dr McKee added in virtually all the instances where there had been a complaint, ICut had attempted to negotiate refunds, but would only do so where clients were entitled to claim within the stated terms and conditions.

He’s been suspended from the Liberal Democrat party while they carry out their own internal investigation.

A spokesperson for the Lib Dems said: “With the support of the federal party, the regional party launched an immediate investigation.”

“Mr McKee has been suspended from the party, pending the outcome of further investigations. The party will work with all other authorities involved in this matter.”

Dr McKee was recently ordered by the courts to to pay £1,000 back to a woman unhappy about the lessons she’d organised for her son.

In a statement, Dr McKee said the hearing had gone ahead despite pleas for it to be postponed due to a family funeral.

Geoffrey Robinson – who beat Dr McKee to the seat of MP for Coventry North West last year – will today be asking trading standards to step up their investigation, claiming the re-named company is still fleecing students.