Motorists fall prey to cloned registrations

MOTORISTS are being wrongly accused of offences because it has become too easy for criminals to clone number plates, says an independent Government report.

The unpublished report for the Home Office and seen by The Daily Telegraph warns that the current system of regulation is too weak to prevent criminals and dishonest motorists from cloning number plates to avoid detection by the country’s expanding network of 11,000 Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras that take 100 million pictures a day.

It says thousands of innocent motorists are being wrongly accused of driving offences and more serious crimes because of the ease with which their vehicle’s registration plate can be cloned by criminals or dishonest drivers seeking to avoid detection by police.

The report, drawn up by Home Office officials, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), DVLA and the surveillance watchdog, says the illegal trade in cloned plates is fuelled by 40,000 suppliers who have each paid just £40 to register with the DVLA to sell number plates but who are largely unregulated and unlicensed.

It warns that paltry fines, which are rarely enforced, are failing to deter criminals, fraudulent suppliers and motorists from cashing in on the demand for cloned plates.

Recent data suggests that there are about 13,000 cases of cloning being reported each year in England and Wales, up from 4,000 in 2018.

The report sets out nine recommendations including a big increase in fines, an annual licensing system for suppliers with heftier charges to become registered and a revamp of plates to include overt and covert insignia to stop them being faked and make it easier for police to trace their origin.

It warns: “The impact of cloning or altering number plates can cause issues for effective policing and can have a detrimental impact on solving crimes.”