Businessman takes his battle over cloned plates to Minister

Altaf Sadique will meet Home Office Minister Nick Herbert in a bid to convince the Government to act to stop others suffering the same frustration.

The meeting has been arranged by Leeds North West MP Greg Mulholland who first raised the case with Mr Herbert in the House of Commons before Christmas.

Mr Sadique, from Adel in Leeds, has received more than 30 fines and congestion charge demands accumulated by another driver using the same number plate as his wife’s Range Rover but has been frustrated in his attempts to get them cancelled because police have refused to record his complaint as a crime.

“I’m not expecting progress on my specific case because politicians don’t have that kind of power to intervene in our system of government,” said Mr Sadique.

“I’m hoping they’re going to look at the whole process because they should have some method by which you could at least register a crime being committed against you because if they’ve got that pool of information they should be able to disseminate that to all the other police authorities.”

Mr Mulholland wants a national strategy so other drivers do not have to endure the same experience as Mr Sadique, who runs an IT business.

Police say he is not the victim of a crime but have flagged the offending vehicle’s details on the police national computer so it will come to light if it is stopped, but in the meantime he has been threatened with legal action if he does not pay the fines.

“Having raised the issue with the Minister of the floor of the House, I am pleased that Mr Sadique and I will have the opportunity to sit down with Nick Herbert to discuss the issue in greater depth, and to press the need for a national strategy to prevent others having to deal with the inconveniences that Mr Sadique has experienced,” he said.

“It is concerning that having reported the cloning of his number plate to the police and the police being aware that his car remained in West Yorkshire, Mr Sadique has continued to receive fines for driving offences committed across the country. The meeting will be an opportunity for Mr Sadique and I to put forward to the Minister these concerns and I hope he will listen, take note, and seriously consider the implementation of a national strategy to prevent cases such as this.”