Help I Don't Understand!

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34675073
Have I misunderstood, DVLA at the time confirmed that the plate was real. The article says they changed it, presumably to avoid any further offence. Now they are talking about prosecution for "falsifying, altering or suppressing the number of a legally registered object". So i'm confused, they don't like the real number and they don't like the fact they changed it! Help!

[Cloverjo]

Did they just swap the number plates without filling in the required forms etc.? That might explain the illegality of the situation.

[Old_Geezer]

No issue as far as I can see. It was causing offence so that was wrong. Instead of taking it off the road (out of the country ?) and using a different car they replaced the numberplate. It seems logical that, that could also be wrong.

[EDDIE51]

Top Gear chose the plate specifically to cause offence to Argentina.
It must have been re registered to the car they used, 'H' prefix plates were issued in the 1980s.

[Zacs-Master]

They didn't change it tho.

[mikey4444]

It beggars belief that the Top Gear crew didn't know that they were driving around in a car with a number plate that was bound to give offence. Clarkson, et all, are childish but not stupid.

It was clearly a stunt that backfired on them.

[Zacs-Master]

I made the very same point in TTTs previous thread
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Media-and-TV/Question1390001.html

[mikey4444]

Its just common sense to me Zacs !

[jno]

I'd be prepared to believe it was an honest mistake if only Clarkson didn't have a history of such mistakes - always honest mistakes and yet somehow always provocative.

[ToraToraTora]

No eddie, they did not, DVLA have confirmed that the plate was on that car from the start. Now they may have purposely made the entire show around the car once they discovered the plate was on a 928 but the plate was always on that car.

[EDDIE51]

^^ OK it was on the car from the start, but they searched for a car that had a plate that would be offensive to Argentina and then bought the car specifically for that program.
I was thinking that the plate was too old for the car but I admit I could be wrong.