Revealed: Hundreds of speeding drivers paid £200 to a Mr Fix-It who passed on their points to fake motorists

Ramesh Jhalli would claim that the imaginary drivers lived at one of eight addresses across the West Midlands, but would return them with 'not known at this address' messages. One such address was at Lime Grove in Smethwick.

News of Jhalli's fraudulent services spread by Facebook and word of mouth, and he has now been jailed after admitting to helping 10 drivers cheat the system.

But police say hundreds more across the country could have benefited from the scam, which the 39 year old ran from November 2012 to October 2014.

When police searched his Hodge Hill home, they found speeding tickets issued by several police forces Staffordshire, West Mercia, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire and Bedfordshire Police.

He ran a spreadsheet of names and dates of birth of the 'drivers' he had invented.

Jhalli, 39, was caught after West Midlands Police's Camera Enforcement Unit spotted some addresses, which tended to be flats with communal entrances, were repeatedly being listed as the homes of speeders.

Flats in Hope Street and Holdgate Road, Birmingham and Lime Grove in Smethwick were used 59 times within a matter of months on official Notice of Intended prosecution (NIP) forms.

There were handwriting similarities on the submitted forms, while checks with the DVLA showed signatures didn't match those of the registered keepers of the speeding vehicles.

Jhalli's downfall came after he himself was caught speeding on the M6 in a van on November 10 last year.

Dates of birth given for the registered keepers were wrong on all of the forms apart from Jhalli's, meaning police focused on his involvement.

Officers then found a woman living in Hope Street at a flat linked to 22 speeding tickets was Jhalli's sister-in-law.

A forensic document examiner found strong links between handwriting on the NIPs and Birmingham City Council benefits applications completed by unemployed Jhalli.

Jhalli admitted perverting the course of justice and at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday was jailed for 18 months.

PC Steve Jevons, from the Camera Enforcement Unit, said: "Jhalli formally admitted fraudulently submitting prosecution paperwork on behalf of 10 drivers… but it's suspected this was an attempt to pervert the course of justice on a huge scale and that he helped hundreds of motorists avoid fines and penalty points.

"We found no trace of the people nominated as driving at the time of each speeding offence and when we contacted the registered keepers of the vehicles they denied all knowledge of receiving the NIP form in the post.

"However, a couple of the owners got cold feet and reported they'd passed the speeding ticket to someone they'd heard could 'make it go away'.

"It seems as though Jhalli's 'service' was well known in an ever-expanding group of friends and associates, plus some of the guilty drivers said they'd learnt of the scam from Facebook posts.

"Our enquiries found he was making very little money from his registered car window tinting business yet his home was elaborately decorated, had a brand new kitchen, plus a double garage extension complete with a gym. We suspect this was funded through his scam.

"People need to realise that lying in a bid to avoid prosecution, and that includes speeding tickets, is a serious offence and can lead to a jail term for perverting the course of justice."