Cambridge students Hannah Alderton and Shaun Cook appeared before the CUSU council on Monday to raise awareness of the fact that Taryn Edwards, director of the Cambridge College Programme, has cheated students out of thousands of pounds.

Alderton, a Geography student, and Cook, who studies Natural Sciences, are both members of Sidney Sussex, and both Sidney Sussex college itself and its JCR fully support the proposal to condemn Edwards’ behaviour.

Edwards, who describes herself as former honorary senior member of staff  at Homerton College, recruited 41 employees, the majority of whom were Cambridge students, to assist on the Cambridge College Programme, a three-week-long summer school for American students in the summer of 2011.

Since the end of the programme, however, the employees have received no payment, with students owed between £1000 and £2000 depending on length and type of employment.

The unpaid employees attempted to resolve this issue through the submission of an on-going claim of non-payment to the UK employment tribunal. Edwards, however, has failed to respond to any form of communication from the employees.

Edwards has also ignored enquiries from boathouses and other providers of service during the programme and correspondence from the employment tribunal, and due to the fact that Edwards and the business reside in the US, the UK tribunal has no power to exert legal pressure on Edwards to reimburse the employees their unpaid wages.

Despite this, the website for the programme has been updated with application details for this summer, suggesting Edwards is still running the programme despite the tribunal and continued non-payment.

The programme uses the facilities of Cambridge colleges, and Newnham College conferencing office has already accepted a preliminary booking for the programme this year. College JCRs such as Emmanuel College Student Union are now voting on whether to condemn Edwards’ actions and give the students who haven’t received payment their full support.

The issue is also being raised of whether any publicity of the programme by college student unions and CUSU should be prohibited, and that no conferencing offices affiliated to the university accept bookings from Edwards or the CCP until all outstanding payment issues are resolved.

The Cambridge College Programme claims to be celebrating its 26th anniversary this summer. It takes on American students who are rising freshmen, sophomores, juniors or seniors in high school, with the website stating that “high academic achievement is recommended” and stressing that the programme can be used for academic credit and mentioned in university applications.

Students that get a place on the programme are charged $6200, excluding the price of air travel to Cambridge, and lunches, special museum exhibition costs and sporting activities such as rowing or golf.

The “scholars” who manage to procure places on the programme take two courses, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with the options including cosmology, English literary villains, nanotechnology, international law and many others, with day excursions and an optional week-long trip to Paris at the cost of an extra $2,300

The website emphasises the safe nature of the programme, with the students not allowed out in Cambridge after 7pm unsupervised and stressing the fact that no forms of public transportation are used, stating that “the program has a fleet of luxury air-conditioned private coaches used in both England and France”.

Edwards has refused to respond to any press enquiries about the tribunal or the unpaid wages.