POLICE in North Yorkshire are taking part in a nationwide crackdown on illegal number plates this week.

The operation, which forms part of the force's ongoing road safety operation, Operation Helical 2, is in response to growing concerns about the increasing number of motorists using unlawful registration plates in a bid to out fox road-side cameras.

The operation, which starts today and will continue for seven days, aims to stop criminals who are believed to be using the illegal registration plates to avoid being caught by police.

Registration lettering and spacing must comply with regulations which specify the typeface, size, colour and British Standard for plates.

It is an offence to alter or re-arrange letters or numbers in a way that makes the plate difficult to read.

Inspector Chris Charlton, head of the roads policing unit at North Yorkshire Police, said: "A vehicle is often an integral part of a criminal's toolkit and often the registration plate will be tampered with in an attempt to avoid detection.

"Illegal alterations range from changes to plate layout, use of non-standard fonts, the use of tape, screws and other objects to obscure plates to more sophisticated methods such as stolen or cloned number plates.

"This operation aims to crack down on travelling criminals, denying them the use of the roads, as well as providing a more detailed picture of the link between this type of offence and broader criminal activity."

The law states that motorists must not alter, rearrange or misrepresent the letters or numbers, and characters must not be moved from one group to the other - for example, A242 ABC must not be displayed as A242A BC.

Offences may result in a fine of up to £1,000, the registration mark being withdrawn without compensation and the offending vehicle failing its MOT test.

Number plates must also be replaced if they have been customised with stylised letters or figures such as italics, or number plate fixing bolts that alter the appearance of the characters.

Police believe criminals are using this technique to stop their vehicles from being picked up by speed cameras or their effective Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system.

The Press reported last week how police in the county are extending the ANPR scheme after it lead to the arrest of 205 people arrested and more than £1.25million worth of property seized in one year. Work has begun on a £150,000 scheme to implement three new fixed sites, in addition to the four existing ones.


Results for operation Helical so far include:

* 5,046 vehicles have been stopped by police* 825 fixed penalty tickets have been handed out for speeding * 120 summons issued for speeding of which 33 were fast-tracked to court * 616 warnings issued for excessive speed * 288 fixed penalty tickets issued for seatbelt offences