“DVLA made my life hell because I proved they’d lost my licence”

A motorcyclist was charged with fraud after producing photocopy evidence DVLA had lost his bike licence.

Marcus Mee, 38, was accused of forging a photocopy of an old driving licence which appeared to prove the DVLA’s records were wrong because it included bikes.

Now the case against Mee has been dropped due a lack of evidence and he has just passed the bike test, despite maintaining he first passed over 20 years ago.
Mee said: “This is the most frightening thing that’s ever happened to me. 

“I go to work and do my job like everyone else. Fraud is not part of my world.”

DVLA’s Corporate Affairs Director, David Evans, would not comment on the individual case but said any photocopy which contradicted the Agency’s records would be suspected of being forged. “Would my suspicions be raised about a photocopy if it didn’t match our microfiches? Yes,” he said.

“On a photocopy there are a number of things that we’d examine around codes and characters and spacing and type fonts.” 

Mee is one of scores of people who say DVLA issued a replacement licence with motorcycle entitlement missing, then denied they ever had a bike licence in the first place.

The married mechanic pleaded not guilty to attempting to obtain a driving licence with fraudulent documents at Redhill Magistrates’ Court in December. He was due to appear again on March 8 but the case was dropped a few days before the hearing.

His legal representative, Malcolm Boother, said: “A letter from the Crown Prosecution Service said they were discontinuing the matter because there was not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.”

In December MCN won a commitment from the DVLA that old licences would be returned on request with new ones, giving people a way to prove a vehicle category was missing.

But despite agreeing to our request, the Agency has yet to admit making mistakes and maintains its records are infallible.

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