Sadiq Khan’s car tax conviction and fine is formally withdrawn after DVLA agreed he was victim of scam
Developed over time first seen 7 days ago
Sadiq Khan's conviction for failing to tax a vehicle registered in his name has been formally withdrawn, after magistrates in Hereford reopened and dropped the case at the DVLA's request. The London mayor had been convicted in his absence last month under the single justice procedure and fined over an untaxed 24-year-old Nissan Micra, but City Hall said he was the victim of a scam in which fraudsters had falsely registered a vehicle in his name — not the first such incident, and one the DVLA was already aware of. The episode drew attention to the wider use of the single justice procedure, which critics have branded "conveyor belt justice" for processing large numbers of cases with minimal scrutiny.
The one-minute hearing at Hereford Justice Centre saw the bench, chaired by Mrs Digings JP, accept the case's reopening and mark it withdrawn, with neither Khan nor a DVLA representative present. He had originally been ordered to pay a £220 fine, £85 in costs and a £35.84 unpaid tax bill on the Micra, first registered in 2002, after DVLA letters about the debt were mistakenly sent to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant rather than Transport for London's offices. The saga had followed a campaign by motorists opposed to the ULEZ expansion, some of whom registered vehicles in Khan's name to redirect charges to him; the DVLA said its investigation into how the wrongful prosecution occurred was continuing, but confirmed the case had been withdrawn.
- Khan's car tax conviction and fine formally withdrawn by Hereford magistrates.
- DVLA requested withdrawal after confirming he was scam victim.
- Case tied to ULEZ protest campaign of falsely registering vehicles in his name.
New here? Start with this
Sadiq Khan is the Mayor of London. He was convicted last month, in his absence, of failing to tax a car registered in his name, after a prosecution brought under a fast-track court process used for minor offences. City Hall said the conviction arose because fraudsters had fraudulently registered a vehicle in his name without his knowledge, a practice known as "car cloning" or similar registration scams.
The vehicle in question was an old Nissan Micra that had gone untaxed, and it emerged that correspondence from the DVLA, the government agency responsible for vehicle records and tax, had been misdirected. The case also came after a campaign by opponents of London's low-emission zone charges, some of whom had said they intended to register vehicles in Khan's name as a form of protest.
The DVLA agreed that Khan had been wrongly prosecuted, and asked the court to reopen and withdraw the case. The episode has drawn attention to how such prosecutions are processed with minimal scrutiny, and to wider concerns about people being falsely linked to vehicles through fraud or registration errors.
More coverage