HE SCRAPPED his car five years ago – so imagine this York postal worker’s surprise when he received a fine for not paying its road tax.

Lawrence Snowden, of Kenrick Place, in Acomb, has had two different cars since taking his J-reg Vauxhall Astra LS to a Ripon scrapyard in 2004.

Despite sending off the necessary statutory off-road notice (SORN) form to the DVLA at the time, a letter from the agency appeared – more than four years later – on his doormat before Christmas saying he was being fined for not paying the car’s road tax.

The 58-year-old received a £40 fixed penalty notice in December, which has now been increased to £80 because he did not pay it immediately. And a firm of solicitors has written to Mr Snowden on the DVLA’s behalf, saying it is beginning court proceedings for non-payment of the fine.

Mr Snowden said: “I phoned them when I got the fine and told them I had sent this SORN form off five years ago. They said if I can’t find a copy of the form, then the car hasn’t been destroyed and they’re taking me to court.”

But Mr Snowden had thrown away the paperwork some time ago following work to modernise his house. “If you saved every letter you ever got, you would have to buy the house next door to store them,” he said.

“I have written back to the DVLA, I have rung them, I have done everything humanly possible to sort this out. If they can do this to me, they can do it to anyone.”

He questioned why the fixed penalty notice had appeared now, years after the car was destroyed and why the licensing agency had failed to send him demands for the road tax on the scrapped Astra.

When Mr Snowden raised these questions in a phone conversation with the DVLA, the official claimed the annual letters sent to motorists before their road tax expired were not sent out as a matter of course, but were instead “courtesy” letters.

A spokesman for the DVLA said the agency would look into the matter. He refused to say anything more, claiming the organisation could not comment on individual cases because of data protection and confidentiality concerns.