Minister's daughter exposes Olympic safety scandal: Stewards made to fake NVQ qualifications and 'trained' in one hour at nightclub

Prison Minister Crispin Blunt's daughter Claudia, 20, recruited through company Tungsten SIA, based in Witney, Oxfordshire

Stewards given fake documentation for safety qualification, didn't receive any first aid training and weren't subject to criminal background checks

By SARAH DUGUID, NICK CRAVEN and HELENA IZETT

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2177018/Claudia-Blunt-Ministers-daughter-exposes-Olympic-safety-scandal.html

Olympic chiefs have launched an urgent investigation after stewards responsible for the safety of thousands of spectators were told to forge exam qualifications.

Whistle blower Claudia Blunt, the daughter of Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt, today exposes how lives could have been put at risk after students recruited to help at the Games were fed the answers to a crucial safety exam instead of doing the 12 months of study it normally takes. And the Cambridge student reveals how:

* In a dimly-lit nightclub, around 80 recruits were given bogus documentation bearing the name of a college that does not even offer the safety qualification.

* The would-be stewards were told to exaggerate their experience if questioned by Olympic organisers.
 
* None of the students was subject to criminal background checks.

* The recruits were told that even though they had no first aid training, they might have to provide medical attention.

After the superficial 'training' session in Oxford nightclub Wahoo, the recruits paid a visit to the Earls Court exhibition centre in London, where 15,000 people will watch each of 16 Olympic volleyball sessions.

They were not searched, nor did they have their identity checked, yet they were told codewords for possible emergencies such as chemical spills or bomb scares.

'The supervisor asked the group if anyone had to be anywhere later on that evening. I said I had to be somewhere at 6pm, so she said, "Right. This will be a quick one".'

The exam papers, for the Level 2 NVQ in 'spectator safety, were headed 'Bishop Auckland College', an institution that none of the students had heard of. The test consisted of several pages of multiple choice questions. Locog stipulates this qualification – which normally takes six to 12 months of study – is the minimum for Olympic stewards.

Ms Blunt said: 'The woman read out the questions and then gave us the answers. They told us to put down only our GCSEs as qualifications. She whistled through it and at one point even said, "It'll look better if you get some of the answers wrong." '

The students were told to sign their exam papers but were told, on several occasions, not to date them.

Ms Blunt said: 'She told us that we were meant to complete the course in 12 months so everything would have to be backdated. There was one date we were allowed to put in. She told us to state that we had worked for Tungsten SIA since March 2011.'