A student made two crucial blunders when he decided to cheat the system by persuading a friend to sit a crucial exam on his behalf, a court was told.

Qiu Shi Zhang, 23, a final-year economics undergraduate at the University of York, resorted to desperate measures after suffering “something of a breakdown” under the pressure of his finals.

Unnerved by the prospect of a three-hour business finance exam earlier this month, he asked his friend and fellow Chinese student, Xin Zhang, to sit the paper for him.

The cunning plot backfired spectacularly. All students were asked to place a personal identity card on the desk beside them and it did not take long before invigilators identified a discrepancy.

Xin, 24, who is short, skinny and bespectacled, bore little resemblance to the ID photograph of Qiu, who was tubby and long-haired.

North Yorkshire Police were informed and officers arrived to arrest Xin at the end of the exam. They also had little difficulty in locating Qiu, who was found loitering nervously outside the building.

Both students confessed immediately, at which point an additional fundamental flaw in their plan was revealed.

Xin, it emerged, had little knowledge of economics and did not have a clue how to answer any of the complex questions, York Magistrates Court was told.

Xin pleaded guilty to fraud and Qiu admitted aiding and abetting the fraud.

Each was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and ordered to pay £35 costs.

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