Students accused of cheating at UK universities are increasingly producing fake sick notes in a “desperate” bid for leniency, a lawyer who specialises in academic misconduct charges has warned.

Daniel Sokol, a barrister who has advised thousands of students who have been accused of academic misconduct, said he is alarmed by the growing numbers of fake doctor’s notes, often generated in Photoshop or ChatGPT, that students are presenting when seeking his advice.

“These are usually students who have engaged in academic misconduct and are seeking some kind of mitigation but, however desperate they are, this fraudulent behaviour is unacceptable,” said Sokol.

Most of the fake doctor’s notes seen by Sokol are from international students, although he had seen examples of letters from NHS doctors being forged, he explained.

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“Students are using their technical skills to replicate doctor’s notes that they’ve received in the past – often from their home country,” said Sokol.

“These notes seem real because they use letterheads from genuine medical practices, but if you look more closely they are not written by a medical professional,” he continued, adding that spelling errors and “undoctorly language” are big giveaways.

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Previously students have turned to fake document mills for these services or asked family doctors to write the required sick note, but increasingly students are producing the documents themselves, added Sokol.

“Some unscrupulous firms are selling these certificates online for as little as £10.99 but it seems like students are increasingly able to create these things themselves,” he added.

Having spotted these fake sickness certificates, Sokol urges clients not to use them. “I would never advise a client to use one of these certificates – it is morally wrong and probably a criminal offence too.”

Sokol’s experience has led some university investigators to speak out anonymously about the dubious claims of disability and illness sought by some students at UK universities.

One university investigator explained how forged medical evidence presented in academic misconduct cases often involved “incredibly serious extenuating circumstances given that the bar on raising extenuating circumstances after results is understandably very high”.

Suspecting the assistance of “specialist agencies” in producing evidence, cases of “bipolar [disorder], termination of pregnancies, even HIV/Aids are becoming more commonplace in the appeals”, they said.

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Fearing negative media attention if institutions are seen to mishandle these cases or loss of tuition fee income if complaints are upheld, it is often easier not to investigate this medical evidence too deeply, they added, noting: “I can understand why some institutions might prefer to turn a blind eye.”

Scrutinising these documents was difficult for academics, agreed Sokol. “You could check with the General Medical Council to check that the doctor is real but, if they are, then you really need to contact the doctor to be sure, and doctors have stringent duties of confidentiality towards their patients in any case,” he said.

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“If the doctor is international that usually makes it even harder to check,” he added.

Concerns over the misuse of “easy-to-abuse” extenuating circumstances procedures were raised in a Studies in Education paper published last year, which drew on interviews with 41 staff – some of whom claimed the system was being “dishonestly” gamed by students seeking essay extensions or other mitigations. The “enormous” volume of requests was now “unmanageable” at many institutions, claimed some interviewees.

The rise of fake sick notes may, however, highlight a larger problem of students accessing NHS healthcare services when seeking mitigation certificates, said Sokol.

“If you manage to get an appointment with an NHS doctor within the short deadline for mitigation or appeals, you might get 10 minutes, which isn’t usually long enough to explain your whole situation and your mental health problems. The letter you’ll get from the doctor will usually be basic and may not satisfy the university,” he said.

For a more in-depth doctor’s note or report, students may need to pay for a private doctor, who can devote more time to patients, Sokol continued.

“That doctor is more likely to produce a letter addressing all the issues that the universities want addressed. But this means that students who can afford a private doctor have better chances than those who can’t.”

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jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com