A MOTORCYCLIST who used false number plates on a bike he couldn’t ride legally has been banned from the roads.

Police found Callum James Ackroyd, 20, on a Phaser 600cc at Squires Café Bar near Sherburn-in-Elmet, a popular meeting place for bikers, said Alexander Steadward, prosecuting told York Magistrates' Court.

The engine was running. But he only had a licence and insurance to ride a 125cc machine.

The number plates on the motorbike were for a Yamaha 125cc, not the more powerful machine Ackroyd was riding, said the prosecutor.

He told officers he had failed his motorcycle test.

Ackroyd, of no fixed address from Huddersfield, pleaded guilty to fraudulent use of number plates, driving without insurance, and driving without a licence, all committed on September 15.

He had a previous conviction in 2022 for using a vehicle without insurance and without a licence and six penalty points.

York magistrates gave him another six penalty points and banned him from driving for six months.

They also fined him £140 and ordered him to pay a £56 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.

Defence solicitor Harry Bayman said: “He is clearly a young man very much devoted to motor bikes.”

The number plates belonged to a Yamaha 125cc bike he owned. He also owned the Phaser 600cc bike, which he had bought to do up.

The less powerful bike had been badly damaged in a road crash six months previously “not through any fault of Callum Ackroyd” and was off the road, said Mr Bayman.

That meant he couldn’t go to Scarborough as part of his younger brother’s birthday celebrations. So he had moved the plates of the bike he was entitled to ride to the bike he couldn’t ride legally, and ridden it.

He was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder having been involved in a “very serious accident” when he was in his teens that had left him physically and mentally scarred, the court heard.