A MOTORIST who used false number plates on his car to avoid paying for insurance has been given a curfew and a £750 fine.

At an earlier hearing, 26-year-old Jordan Glynn said he committed the offence because he could not afford to insure his Vauxhall Vectra and to pay for his expired MOT certificate. 

So he paid £20 for a new set of plates from EBay, illegally using the registration details of another car, though he said he planned to do that for only 30 days.

At Carlisle Crown Court, prosecutor Gerard Rogerson outlined how the offence came to light thanks to eagle-eyed police officers who were patrolling in Carlisle's London Road area.

They had received information suggesting the Vectra should be checked.

“The officers signalled for the vehicle to stop and Mr Glynn, who was driving, duly pulled over [on King Street],” said Mr Rogerson.

As the officers spoke to the defendant, the results of a check were sent to them, confirming that the Vectra’s registration plates were fake.

Glynn cooperated with the officers, confirming the car was uninsured.

“He said he hadn’t [had insurance] for a about a month because he had set up as a self-employed electrician and struggled to pay his costs… He applied the false plates to the vehicle a month earlier.”

Glynn said that even though he had driven for eight years without making a single claim, he was quoted monthly insurance premiums that ran into hundreds of pounds.

“I copied the plates off another vehicle of the same type because I couldn’t afford to pay the insurance,” said. The court heard that Glyn was a man of previous good character.

In court, the defendant, who was not legally represented, said he was now paying £250 per month for car insurance. He told Judge Nicholas Barker: “I late December, I’d has just stopped working for three weeks.

“I needed to get some money to keep paying the bills and to pay insurance. I was really short of cash at the time. Out of desperation, I made a silly decision to put some plates on because I could not afford £400 to £500.

“I just made a bad choice and I’m really sorry about it.”

Now employed servicing fire alarms all over the country, Glynn, of Fairfield Terrace, Ossett, Wakefield, added that he had been in a bad place but was now trying to be a better person every day.

Judge Barker imposed the fine and a 28-day community order with an electronically monitored curfew.

He also imposed six penalty points, which brought to 12 the number of points on Glynn’s licence.

However, the Judge did not agreed not to disqualify Glynn for six months as the court was entitled to do on the grounds that this would have caused “exceptional hardship.”