A businessman who has never driven in London faced £1,000 in congestion charge and parking fines after fraudsters cloned his Range Rover.

Barry Ellis was harassed by bailiffs at his Cheshire home and almost ended up in court during a two-year campaign over the unpaid charges.

Criminals had copied his number plates and put them on an almost identical £35,000 4x4, meaning penalty charge notices started arriving for Mr Ellis, 45, soon after he bought the car in October 2006.

The first, an offence in Great Dover Street in Borough, was followed by violations in Redcliffe Gardens in Fulham, Baker Street, King's Road and on the A1.

Mr Ellis returned the tickets explaining he had only ever been to London on a coach but the fines were returned with stern letters demanding he pay the ever increasing amount.

Eventually, the money from five congestion charge fines and one Westminster council parking ticket snowballed to almost £1,000.

Mr Ellis, who runs a minibus service, finally convinced police he was a fraud victim and they let him change his registration.

But TfL still refused to back down and sent in bailiffs who issued more than 20 letters, charging more money for every one.

TfL agreed to cancel the fines after being contacted by the Evening Standard and apologised to Mr Ellis. The businessman said: "You can tell from the CCTV pics they sent me that it's not my car. It's the same colour and the same registration but the badge on the back is different.

"The bailiffs said they would give me a week to sort it out but I haven't been able to get TfL to see reason. It's so obvious that it's not me, you can see the bloke getting into the other Range Rover in one of the CCTV pictures and it is clearly not me."

Police said that last year 40,000 sets of number plates were stolen in the UK, up 25 per cent on the previous 12 months.

TfL said: "We have cancelled all congestion charge PCNs relating to Mr Ellis's vehicle and would like to apologise for the delay and any distress this may have caused."

Mr Ellis added: "I'm over the moon they've seen sense at last, I just wonder why it took two years and so much aggravation to get them to see what anyone could work out in two minutes." Westminster said fines could also be challenged with the Parking Appeals Service.

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