Same here - is that not still the case? I've done nothing regarding my student loan, didn't even tell them I was leaving the country. Well, they can have 15% of my nothing a year with pleasure...

hello there
my friend who had a student loan said if you are out of the uk for 8 years or more they just write it of?? dont know how true this is. this is what he said
all the best
Dave

If you take out a loan with the intention of never repaying it you are probably committing an offence of obtaining property by deception, though I'm not sure if loans count as services rather than property. Its a really confusing avenue of the law. You are also falling into an offence of evading a liability to repay a loan. There are loads of technical bits and bobs that come into play though - for example, if the loan is done electronically there is no property so you have not committed the first offence. As soon as you remove and cash, though, you might be seen to be committing theft because at that stage you have dishonestly appropriated property belonging to another. It very complicated stuff!!
Whether the bank would come after you is probably dependant on the ammount of money taken but then the bank can simply obtain a county court judgement in your absence, then sell the debt to a collection agency who will then hunt you down and take you to the cleaners.
They may not come after you in the criminal courts (they probably wouldn't) but they'll get you one way or another!!
There are much easier ways to defraud banks but I'm not about to disclose such things on the internet for anyone to read!!!!!!!

If you have a bad credit rating, it's this which will be wiped after 7 years, not any existing loans. If you default on loans, the credit rating continues to take a dive. The credit companies who keep the file on you have all the details, so you can apply to them to check your rating. There are also ways of cleaning up your rating.

Once all your debts are 'settled' with each individual company, make sure the credit people know this by writing letters. Once each bad debt is closed down and resolved, then this record remains for 7 years.

I had a student loan myself. There is no such clause in the fine print that you signed up for which states the debt is wiped after time out of the country. It works like all other debts. They may stop pursuing you, but that's not the same thing... If you default, they will have it recorded on your UK credit history.

and again i say.

The OP wanted to know if by taking money to OZ that legally belongs to the bank are they likely to get caught.

Fraud and theft.