Thousands of illegal ghost plates on cars revealed by new cameras

Thousands of illegal registration plates on cars and other vehicles have been detected by a new camera system currently being tested on motorways in south-east England, BBC Panorama can reveal.

Illegal plates are putting the public at risk and are far too easy to get hold of, according to one former government advisor.

Filming undercover, we also discovered how easy and cheap it is to buy plates without any background checks.

The UK has one of the largest networks of ANPR cameras in the world, with 14,000 sites capturing 100 million number plates each day. Many experts believe this system is failing to keep up with tactics used by some drivers determined to avoid recognition.

How cloned and ghost number plates are leaving innocent motorists facing fines, debt collection threats and years of stress.

Watch on BBC iPlayer or on BBC One (BBC Two in Northern Ireland) at 20:00 on Monday 28 September.

These tactics include deliberately using false plates that clone the number of another vehicle - and so-called ghost plates, where special plastic is used to make all or part of the registration number unreadable by most motorway cameras.

At one test site, just outside London near the Dartford Crossing, it has recorded an average of more than 1,000 of the ghost plates a day over several months.

Sharon Gannon's son, Jason Wallis, died in a crash where hidden registration plates were involved. She believes being invisible to ANPR cameras emboldens drivers to take deadly risks.

Baker survived and was later jailed for 15 months for dangerous driving. In court, he admitted using a device to hide his number plate from public view. He also said he and Wallis had ridden at high speed more than 100 times.

In another case, from 2025, 81-year-old Graham Slinn was killed on a pedestrian crossing when a car with cloned plates hit him at high speed.

Graham Slinn was killed in a crash involving a driver using illegal plates