Cloning - the council have to prove it is your vehicle (hint: they can't).

 

Councils, Barnet included, are expected to learn from the decisions of adjudicators and act accordingly. One excellent decision is above.

Their cctv having picked up by ANPR a particular vehicle in an alleged contravention they are entitled to send the registered keeper a PCN (for driving through the bus gate in Netherlands Road and for other alleged contraventions on different days) provided the vehicle is of the same make and colour, details which they should check against the data which DVLA supplies.

Having done that to a client of Mr Mustard, let us call her Alice, she received a PCN for having driven wrongly at 03:31. Much as she might have liked to have been out dancing and on her way home at 3 in the morning, as a single mother she was safely tucked up at home in bed so she could get the kids to school and herself to work the next day. 

Mr Mustard made the formal representations and included additional photographs:

Now any sensible council would look at their own photos and realise the offending car was not the real car and cancel (as Brent & Enfield did, the cloned car being a serial contravener and was also caught speeding and the Met Police accepted the explanation) but Barnet didn't. They rejected the representations for this PCN whilst accepting them for other PCNs of the same time period.

Off Mr Mustard went to the tribunal and his grounds included the following:

The council are also being unsustainably inconsistent in that they have cancelled some of the PCNs but not others.

The question of vehicle identity having been raised the council must now prove that it is Zoe's vehicle in their images, and not a clone, in line with the thrust of the decision in case 2220717836.

The light dawned at Barnet Council HQ and they did not oppose the Appeal but cancelled the PCN.

If your vehicle get's cloned, put unique stickers on it front and rear, take a photograph of it every day wherever it is parked as a PCN might be issued when it was physically impossible to get there, keep your dashcam footage if you have it and be helpful to the council, send them photos of all 4 aspects of the vehicle. 

Also tell them this. The car you have identified is a 'clone', you must prove that it is the vehicle I own, if you have a photograph of the VIN or anything else which proves the car you are seeking to impose a penalty for is mine, please provide it to me as the burden of proof is on the council. The innocent motorist cannot prove a negative, it is impossible.

They will hopefully see the way the wind is blowing and cancel.

The end.

Council stupidity and reversing the burden of proof

Cloning of numberplates is very common. It is an absolute pain for the innocent party who has to engage with the police, the DVLA and all the councils where the naughty car committed a contravention. It is usual for there to be multiple PCNs and rather than all representations being accepted or refused you end up with a mix, utterly stupid. Here is a letter which Barnet Council sent after one such representation and far from being bound by a made up time limit the recipient doesn't even have to reply:

As motorists tend to get nervous about not replying Mr Mustard provides some of the information and did so in this case:

 

Providing the log book and the council's own photographs should have been enough but no, the council rejected the perfect challenge in the hope that an innocent party would part with £65 they didn't owe. Not when Mr Mustard is stood behind them they won't.

Mr Mustard marched on. He started an Appeal to the independent adjudicator at London Tribunals on behalf of Miss M for Mini.

Only a week later Barnet Council threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN. They had incurred a tribunal fee of c. £30 which is just money down the drain. The council were never going to win. A person whose car has been cloned, although it is helpful to provide information, is under no obligation to provide any information at all. The council have to prove the car they wish to obtain a penalty for is your one. Here is a comprehensive decision on the subject.

You can send that decision to any council when telling them your car has been cloned and you are providing a reasonably helpful amount of information. You do not have to jump through all of the council's hoops, tell them they have to prove the car in question is yours.

Once you get the first cloned PCN start taking a photo of your car every time you park it so that you then have a comprehensive record of where it was at all times i.e. you parked at home on Tuesday morning and then didn't move it until Friday afternoon (and so on) is easily evidenced by just 2 photos.

Even before then put distinctive stickers in your front and rear windows or on your numberplates, anything you like, a pokemon, your football team colours, baby on board etc etc and then the cloned vehicle will look visibly different to the real car.

Make 2025 the year that you take no nonsense.

The end.