I recall a similar case over a speeding ticket on the A1 at Scotch Corner.
The driver - who lived in Nottingham - played the cloned car card.
He did this by changing the appearance of his car by fitting EU marked number plates, removing a works car parking pass in the windscreen, and putting the tax disc in a different corner of the windscreen.
He obtained a receipt from a feed merchant near to where he lived to show he could not have been at Scotch Corner at the time.
What he didn't do was think the coppers would check his bank account, initially to see if he had paid for the feed.
This showed he had bought a McDonald's in Edinburgh a few hours before the speeding offence, thereby putting him at Scotch Corner on the way home at about the right time.
He pleaded to perverting the course at Durham Crown Court and got, if I recall, nine months.
His wife in the public gallery burst into tears and was last heard asking his barrister how she would get home because she couldn't drive.
The coppers told me afterwards they were on the cusp of giving up, budgets mean there's only so much police time available to investigate someone trying to wriggle out of a speeding ticket.