Kit PetersDVLA FRAUD: Swansea insider jailed after doctoring car records in £1.3m scam
A DVLA worker who used his job to doctor vehicle records in an organised fraud has been jailed.
Matthew Holloway, 32, abused his position at the agency’s Swansea office to falsify car paperwork, a court heard.
His changes inflated the value of the vehicles involved by almost £1.3m, and cost the DVLA itself £117,500.
Holloway, from the Birchgrove area of Swansea, was sentenced to five years and three months at Swansea Crown Court.
He had worked in the DVLA’s special registration team — described in court as a position of trust and responsibility.
Holloway conspired with two Swansea car dealers, Ashley Harris, 44, and Joshua Sawyer, 32, who paid him to manipulate records for their businesses.
Harris, from Llansamlet, was jailed for two years and eight months. Sawyer, from Morriston, was sentenced to two years and four months.
All three had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud between January 2021 and July 2022.
The court heard Holloway ran what the prosecution called a “systematic campaign” of vehicle document tampering.
He removed registered keepers from logbooks and inserted new names, altered vehicle identification numbers, and stripped out markers showing cars had been written off.
In one instance, his alterations allowed a Ferrari that had been written off in Australia to be sold in the UK under false documentation.
In another, he doctored the records of a Mercedes-AMG so many times that the prosecutor suggested it might point to use in criminal activity.
Holloway also worked for others not before the court, in one case issuing false identity documents for a stolen Range Rover that was then sold to an innocent buyer.
Harris and Sawyer paid Holloway around £23,400 between them for circumventing the agency’s usual controls.
Judge Huw Rees told the men that “greed is at the heart of each of you defendants and your offending”.
He described the case as “organised and sophisticated criminality which has been committed for selfish gain”.
Holloway, who was in tears in the dock, was told his actions represented “a substantial fall from grace”.
Lisa McCarthy, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said Holloway had held a trusted position and exploited it for financial benefit, as had Harris and Sawyer.
She said their offending had “risked corrupting the UK’s vehicle registration system”, which the public, motor trade and law enforcement rely on for accurate information.
The DVLA said the case was a serious breach of trust by a former employee, who was dismissed once the fraud was identified.
A spokesperson said the agency had since strengthened its internal controls to help prevent similar activity.
A proceeds of crime hearing in relation to the case is due to be held in October.
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