Nightmare for driver who was handed 32 traffic fines worth £2,800 after criminals cloned her number plate
A London media consultant, Sandra Yarwood, returned from a two-week holiday in Canada to discover she had racked up 32 separate £90 traffic and parking fines, totalling £2,800, across seven local authorities. She had not driven the offending vehicle herself; criminals had cloned her number plate and fixed it to a similar black Volkswagen Golf in south London, a growing fraud that affects thousands of motorists a year who then have to fight to clear their names.
Despite reporting the cloning to the DVLA and police, Ms Yarwood found local authorities still demanded extensive proof, including photographs of her car from every angle, before withdrawing each fine separately. She used distinguishing features, such as an English Heritage sticker, a scratch and a sunroof missing from the fraudster's car, to win concessions from Greenwich, Transport for London, Southwark, Central Parking Management and Merton, but faced broken online portals and unhelpful chatbots at Lambeth and Lewisham. Eight weeks on, two fines remained unresolved and she had been wrongly summoned to a tribunal in February 2027 after missing a deadline; Lambeth has since confirmed both its PCNs were cancelled and apologised for the difficulties she faced.
- Cloned number plate left driver facing £2,800 in fines
- Council portals and chatbots made appeals gruelling
- Most fines withdrawn, but process took over eight weeks
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Sandra Yarwood, a media consultant from London, came back from holiday to find she owed £2,800 in fines for driving offences she had not committed. Criminals had cloned her number plate and put it on a similar black Volkswagen Golf being driven around south London, so every camera and traffic warden that caught the fake car logged the fine against her name instead.
Number plate cloning is a growing problem in the UK, with thousands of innocent motorists caught out each year. Because separate councils and agencies each run their own enforcement systems, victims typically have to prove their innocence to every authority individually, often by supplying evidence such as photos of their actual car, even after the fraud has been reported to the police and the DVLA.
The case highlights the practical burden this fraud places on victims, who can face months of paperwork, unresponsive complaints systems and even court summonses over penalties they were never liable for, despite having no personal involvement in the wrongdoing.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Those defending the councils' approach argue that local authorities cannot simply take a driver's word that a plate was cloned, since criminals and genuine offenders alike could exploit an unverified claim to escape legitimate fines. Requiring photographic evidence and distinguishing features protects public funds and the integrity of the enforcement system, and each authority processes thousands of penalty notices with limited staff, meaning a degree of standardised proof is a proportionate, if imperfect, safeguard against fraud rather than a deliberate act of obstruction.
The case against
Those sympathetic to Ms Yarwood argue that once cloning has been reported to the DVLA and police, the burden of proof should shift away from an innocent victim who has already suffered a crime, not been compounded by a bureaucratic ordeal across seven separate authorities. They contend that broken portals, unhelpful chatbots and a wrongful tribunal summons show systems that are not merely cautious but poorly designed and unresponsive, leaving law-abiding citizens to do the investigative work councils and enforcement bodies ought to coordinate themselves.