As title says

reported to police who informed me it’s not an offence to drive round with cloned plates !

looked at online pics and videos of the same car with same plates – my car has a tow bar, this one didn’t, also completely different area.

dvla informed by post can’t do it online or phone

Have sent emails with CAD number etc so hopefully that will be the end of that…some how I doubt it is !!!

What a pain in the ass !

It may not be an offence in itself, but as it’s not the actual plate for the other car surely it’s not insured?

Did they not change the system many years ago where you had to show proof of ownership/registration to be able to buy new plates.

This was supposed to stop those weird fonts and cloning.

edit:

https://www.halfords.com/advice/motoring/service/replacement-number-plates-made-at-halfords

got to be an offence for getting cloned plates in there somewhere

I think you might want to escalate your position with the Police.

If it’s an offence not to display a number plate then it must be one to be running a false/cloned plate.

It’s also an offence for whoever made/supplied the plates to have done so without evidence of identity and entitlement .

To goto the trouble of cloning a plate must be a cover for other criminal activity …

No insurance or MOT and motoring offences such as speeding are good starters but also more serious stuff where the vehicle is instrumental.

I thought you could just get around all that proof of ownership stuff by buying “show plates”?

https://www.a1showplates.com/

No documents required here

I think it’s the dealer that comits the offence if they supply plates without the correct documents. Anyhow you can buy “show plates” mail order with no paperwork.

reported to police who informed me it’s not an offence to drive round with cloned plates !

That strikes me as somewhat odd. I am not a lawyer or cop but I cant help but think if it was not an offence it would be even more common than it is now. It seems a bit too perfect crime otherwise. Grab someone elses number plate and giggle as the speeding/parking etc tickets go to them. In the same way as they had to create taking without consent for joyriders as opposed to proper theft and various computing related crimes I really cant believe a loophole that big would still be around.

Indeed a quick google shows it does seem to be an offence although it gets quite lawyerly in terms of penalties.

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/vehicle-licenceregistration-fraud/

Did they not change the system many years ago where you had to show proof of ownership/registration to be able to buy new plates.

You can just buy “show plates” online, if you get them with legal font, size and spacing they pass an MOT (I have done it in the past for my car as it was cheaper and less hassle than taking V5 etc in to a business during working hours)

You could try writing to the local police if they are trying to verbally ignore it.

Police who informed me it’s not an offence (they want to deal with).

Feel your pain, I had this with a VW Lupo GTI about 12 years ago. I knew nothing about it until I came to sell the car and my reg had been HPI’d about 100 times down London and I’m from North Yorkshire.Contacted the police and ended up having to take my car to VOSA to prove that mine was the legit one.

I couldn’t sell the car while it was being investigated and it took nearly 8 months for the Police in London to get the cloned car, then HPI cleared all the false checks and I was free to sell it.

A friend of a friend had her plates cloned. She actually (in one of those amazing coincidence moments) saw the cloned car while out one day and followed it to a supermarket, on the phone to the police who took so long turning up that the car had long gone by the time they got there.

She’s had several speeding tickets and parking fines (all rescinded because she’s had to fit a tracker and dashcam to her car to prove where it is at any given time). The police stopped her once as well cos her number plate is registered as suspicious on ANPR. They’ve never managed to find the cloned car though.

It certainly is an offence: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/22/section/42

If they could show that it was being done intentionally to avoid detection of a crime, then you might expect (attempting to) pervert the course of justice charges.

Erm it’s an offence to have the wrong fonts or spacing on a plate.

It’s certainly an offence to have the wrong plates all together!

Edit: whether the police have the time or resources to deal with it… That’s probably the crux of the issue.

Judging by the amount of ‘entitled’ prats driving around with plate letters spaced and/or fixings strategically placed making up words, names etc, then it must be an offence that the police rate as low on the priority, until said car goes through a speed camera and they can’t identify it.

If the police can’t or won’t at least pretend to investigate this sort of crime whilst they can dick about trying to prosecute people for sending tweets or posting shite on facebook, then the country really is ****. It will get to a point there is no coming back from. We are already starting to see a rise of community action groups (vigilantes-lite) out patrolling the streets at night and social media requests for local hard nuts to take action to recover stolen goods etc. Only a matter of time before innocent people are being lynched by mistake. I’ll bet the police will find some resources then.