Details of previous owners and crashes were wiped from the records, and stolen or cloned vehicles were given new identities
A trusted DVLA employer abused his position with the agency to alter or delete vehicle records to boost their value and to issue new identities for stolen or crashed cars, a court has heard.
Matthew Holloway accessed computer and paper-based systems to manipulate records for two car dealers in Swansea as well as for other individuals and organisations around the UK. Holloway’s actions served to increase the value of the vehicles with the dodgy documents by almost £1.3m.
A judge at Swansea Crown Court described what happened as “an example of organised crime” which had undermined the function of the DVLA and had invalidated the integrity of vehicle records which are relied upon by drivers, traders, and law enforcement. Don’t miss a court report by signing up to our crime newsletter here
Holloway and the two car dealers he was working with – Ashley Harris and Joshua Sawyer – have all been sent down.
Craig Jones, prosecuting, told the court that at the time of the offending Holloway worked in the special registration team at the DVLA, a position of trust and responsibility.
He told the court the defendant abused that trust by engaging in a “systematic campaign of vehicle document tampering” including removing registered keepers from log books and inserting new names, altering vehicle identification numbers, removing markers from the records which showed vehicles had previously been written off, removing certificates of destruction from records, and issuing new false identities for cloned, reconstructed, or stolen vehicles.
The court heard some of the manipulation of DVLA data was done at the request of two Swansea car dealers who operated a number of different companies between them – the co-defendants Harris and Sawyer. However, other changes to vehicle records were done at the request of people and organisations around the court and not in the dock.
The prosecutor said as examples of the changes made on behalf of Sawyer, the defendant removed the details of seven previous keepers from the record of an Audi RS5 and inserted the name of a new keeper, and also doctored the history of an imported Ferrari 458 Italia to hide the fact it had been written off in Australia.
The barrister said as examples of the manipulation carried out for Harris, the defendant changed the records of a BMW M4 Competition and a Mercedes-AMG to hide the fact they had both been involved in crashes in the past. He said in the case of the Merc, the identity of the car was changed no fewer than three times “which may be indicative – and I put it no higher than that – of use in criminal activity”.
The court heard Holloway carried out similar changes to other vehicles not linked to Harris or Sawyer, including issuing false identity documents for stolen Range Rover Sport worth £65,000 which was then sold to an innocent third party.
The prosecutor said the results of the prolonged investigation into the activities of Holloway showed the manipulation of the records he carried out meant an increase in the value of vehicles to the tune of some £1,290,000. He said the Harris benefited from the increase in the value of vehicles linked to him by £90,000 while Sawyer benefited to the tune of £75,000. Holloway himself was paid a total of £23,400 by the co-defendants for carrying out the changes.
The court heard that DVLA has also lost out to the tune of £27,000 on fees which were not paid.
Matthew David Holloway, aged 32, of Ffordd y Mynydd, Birchgrove, Swansea; Joshua John Sawyer, aged 31, of Treharne Road, Morriston, Swansea; and Ashley Keith Harris – also known as Keith Wayne Lewis – aged 44, of Tawe Road, Llansamlet, Swansea, had all previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud between January 2021 and July 2022 when they appeared in the dock for sentencing.
Neither Holloway nor Sawyer have any previous convictions while Harris has previous convictions for motoring offences, Class A drug trafficking in 2008 and 2012, and fraud from 2017. The fraud involved the defendant lying to finance firms about having been in a steady job for five years and earning around £30,000 a year in order to obtain high-value cars including BMW M4s, an Audi Q7, and an Audi R8.
In fact, the defendant had spent much of that time in prison serving a 2012 drug dealing sentence, and the income he declared to the taxman was less than half the amount claimed. On that occasion his barrister told Swansea Crown Court that his client ran a car sales business and the motivation for the fraud “may well have been to drive around in expensive cars to portray a certain image”.
Harris was sentenced to two years in prison for those offences with a judge describing him as a “thoroughly greedy and dishonest man” who “enjoys the trappings of money”.
Jon Tarrant, for Holloway, said his client’s personal gain from what he did at the DVLA had been limited compared to some of the sums of money the court had heard about, something which the defendant may be reflecting upon in the dock and questioning whether it was worth it. He said his client was “disgusted and ashamed” at his actions, and he described the fraud as “a spectacular fall from grace for which he will have to pay a high price”.
Andrew Evans, for Sawyer, said his defendant was a family man who had always worked hard since leaving school. He said when his client lost his job as a mechanic in the Covid pandemic he started his own car sales business and realised he could make “swift money” by getting his friend Holloway to make changes to vehicle documentation. The advocate said Sawyer now realises he made “a significant error of judgement” in trying to help his fledgling business.
David Singh, for Harris, said in the normal course of events given his client’s antecedent history his mitigation would go only to length of sentence, but he asked the court to find there were “exceptional and unusual” circumstances in the serious health issues being suffered by the defendant’s young daughter.
Judge Huw Rees said in his view what the court was dealing with was “an example of organised crime” which had the effect of undermining the function of the DVLA and invalidating the integrity of vehicle records which are relied upon by drivers, motor traders, and law enforcement. He said “greed was at the heart” of the offending for all three defendants.
With one-quarter discounts for their guilty pleas Holloway was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, Harris to two years and eight months, and Sawyer to two years and four months. The defendants will each serve up to half their sentences in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
Speaking after the sentencing Lisa McCarthy, District Crown Prosecutor for CPS Cymru-Wales’ complex casework unit, said: “The evidence revealed an organised effort to alter vehicle documentation, including changing records to conceal the true status and history of vehicles.
“Holloway held a trusted position within the DVLA and exploited that role, as did Harris and Sawyer, for financial benefit. Their offending risked corrupting the UK’s vehicle registration system, which the public, motor trade and law enforcement depend on for accurate information.”
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