Number is up for car plates, say police

They want a clampdown on shops and internet sites selling registration plates and new rules forcing motorists to fit tamper-proof plates which shatter if removed.

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They are also calling for the plates to be fitted with electronic chips linked to ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition) systems so that a vehicle's identity can be confirmed against a computerised national register.

Senior officers refuse to criticise the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) openly, but claim the system has changed little since the Thirties.

Superintendent John Wake, of the Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service, said: "It's too easy to clone or steal car registration plates, which in turn makes it easy to commit crime using an innocent person's identity.

"It means innocent motorists have to prove they did not commit crimes in which their vehicles were supposedly involved.

"The vehicle is a crime-enabler and we want to reduce the opportunity for it to be exploited. I am not criticising the DVLA. The number plate in its present form has had its time."

More than 40,000 sets of plates were stolen last year - a rise of almost 25 per cent, according to police estimates - and there are thought to be thousands of cloned cars on Britain's roads.

But the only way of confirming a vehicle's identity is to compare the licence plate with the chassis number.

Many plates are taken from legitimate vehicles and attached to cars and vans of the same make, size and colour, enabling drivers to escape fines, penalties and parking tickets.

Paul Smith, of the pressure group SafeSpeed, said: "We don't need clever vehicle registrations. But we do need to scrap the failed speed camera policy urgently."

Captain Gatso, the campaigns director of Motorists Against Detection, said: "Only a tiny minority of people involved are criminals. The majority are ordinary motorists fed up with paying through the nose to use the roads."

Paul Watters of the AA said: "There are different levels of cloning. Sometimes it's stealing a plate to evade a speed camera, but it can also involve a criminal who wants to sell a stolen car."