In February, London began charging drivers £5 per day to drive into the center of the city. What I find so fascinating about this is that it is enforced by photographing cars’ license plates at every entry point to the payment zone. The driver can pay the fee online before or soon after the drive. Nick Aster discussed this thoroughly (with links) on Beyond Brilliance.

The problem with the photographic system is that you can always just fake your license-plate number to avoid the fee (and pass it on to someone else). This is exactly what happened to an innocent driver who was unfortunate enough to have his plate number randomly reproduced on a stolen car. (No doubt the plate faker was merely trying to prevent the police from noticing his stolen car, but this had the added benefit of avoiding the congestion fee.) Our innocent protagonist argued with the police to no avail, and eventually solved the problem himself by driving around the area where the offending driver had been photographed, slashing the tires of the offending car, and again calling the police. (full article)

Question: Did he still have to pay the £5 fee for driving into the city that day?