The growing menace of fake driving licences

SOARING numbers of motorists are being caught with bogus driving licences, shock new figures reveal.

More than 3,000 phony licences have been discovered by the DVLA in the last five years – with more than 900 of those being found last year alone.

The figures came to light after two men were convicted within a matter of days in Scottish courts of driving on fake licences purporting to have been issued in Latvia.

Motoring safety campaigners said drivers using false licences were a “menace”.

Document examiners at DVLA in Swansea are called in to investigate photocard licences either submitted as part of an application or received by police when drivers are accused of flouting road laws.

The number of fake licences had remained broadly static between 2012 – when 643 were found – and 2015, when 693 were identified.

However, in 2016, that number rose sharply with 901 fakes identified by DVLA.

Some of these cases have involved people driving on the streets of the UK for extended periods without ever having passed a test.

Two men were last month sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court after being caught with fake licences.

Muhammad Raza was caught by DVLA after sending in his fake licence – which claimed to be a genuine document issued in Latvia – in a bid to have it converted to a full UK licence.

The 60-year-old, of Dundee, was sentenced to 110 hours unpaid work on a community payback order after admitting a charge under the Identity Documents Act.

And Ivo Sokolovics was caught after sending his phony licence – also purporting to be a real Latvian licence – to a court after he was caught speeding.

The factory worker had been handed a £100 fine and three penalty points for a speeding offence on the A90 between Aberdeen and Dundee.

He tried to pass the licence off as real – but a clerk at Glasgow Sheriff Court, which processes fines from across Scotland, noted a discrepancy.

A photocopy of the card was sent to DVLA where a document examiner realised it was bogus.

Sokolovics was then pulled over in Forfar in November – and again tried to pass off the fake licence as real to officers.

When he was interviewed by police he admitted he had never passed a driving test either in the UK or his native Latvia.

Sokolovics, 29, of Forfar, pleaded guilty on indictment to two charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice and one under the Identity Documents Act 2010, all committed between February 21 and November 24 2015.

He was placed on a restriction of liberty order confining him to his home from 7pm til 7am every day for four months on an electronic tag.

In their response to a Freedom of Information request the DVLA said: “Where a driving licence, received by DVLA as a part of an application, is found to be false it is sent to the police.

“If the police obtain a driving licence suspected to be false, they may send it to DVLA for examination.

“The document will then be returned to the police with a statement confirming whether the licence is false or not.”

Luke Bosdet, spokesman for the AA, said: “Foreign and UK motorists driving with false licences have been a menace for quite some time.

“Hopefully, these court cases will send a message that false licences don’t stand up to scrutiny and that users run the gauntlet of severe punishment.

“I suspect the level of camera enforcement in the UK is not something many foreign drivers are used to and speeding with a false licence makes it only a matter of time before the authorities catch up with them.

“There are websites offering false driving licences but getting caught with the possibility of going to jail underlines the strong chance the bogus licences are useless.”

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: “If a fake licence is presented, officers will take appropriate action and report it to the Procurator Fiscal.”

A DVLA spokesman said: “Where a driving licence, received by DVLA as a part of an application, is found to be false it is sent to the police.

“If the police obtain a driving licence suspected to be false, they may send it to DVLA for examination.

“The document will then be returned to the police with a statement confirming whether the licence is false or not.”