The highest paid public transport boss in Scotland has been pictured driving an illegal cloned car on holiday, it is reported.
Gordon Maclennan, chief executive of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), had a VW Passat in his staff car park and another at his holiday home, the Sunday Mail reported.
Both with the same SF02 ORB registration.
The £153,000-a-year public sector director was last week pictured driving a cloned silver Passat at his retreat on the Isle of Lewis with his police officer son Stuart sitting in the passenger seat.
At the same time an almost identical blue Passat car with the same registration was pictured at his office, 300 miles away in Glasgow city centre.
Public records show a blue version of the car is taxed and MOT-ed with the DVLA.
Cloning is a highly illegal practice often used by organised criminals to commit an offence which is later associated with another car.
If a legitimate car’s registration is placed on one of a similar make and model, the scam could also be used to avoid road tax, insurance and MOT costs.
When a journalist confronted Maclennan, 69, who also part-owns a motor repair garage, he attempted to deny everything.
He said "that's not true" when asked whether he had a cloned car on Lewis with the same plate as a similar car at the SPT office.
We asked which part wasn’t true and he responded: “All of it.”
He then claimed he did not drive a Passat with the registration in question on Lewis.
Asked about the car at the SPT’s office, he responded “Where are you getting this story from?” and hung up the phone.
Maclennan and his son were photographed leaving their seaside cottage in remote Dalmore and driving three miles to church in the nearby village of Carloway on Lewis earlier this month.
When they returned home, the businessman was again seen driving the car he denied any knowledge of.
The vehicle was used at least one other time the same weekend the blue Passat with the same registration was pictured at Maclennan’s office.
Google Earth images dating back to 2009 show a silver VW Passat parked at the Dalmore property.
A police source said: “Cloning is illegal. There is no question that having two cars with the same registration is against the law.
“Then there is the question of driving a cloned car which will not have road tax, MOT or insurance. On top of all that, there is the question of the true identity of the car and whether anything illegal has gone on in acquiring or changing its identity.
“For someone with an extremely high salary in a highly responsible public-facing executive job, it is incredible they would do this to save maybe £600 a year – but then people do very strange things.”
Maclennan is also co-owner of Millar Motors, an MOT and repairs garage in Kilsyth, Lanarkshire.
Maclennan came under fire in 2016 after it emerged the SPT had sold dozens of taxpayer-owned buses at a fraction of their original cost.
Minibuses bought for between £82,000 and £84,000 were later sold for as little as £450.
The transport body had spent £7.5million buying up more than 90 buses to form its own fleet from companies including Allied Vehicles, where Maclennan had declared he was previously a board member.
In 2015 it was reported that SPT directors, including Maclennan, had billed taxpayers for almost £50,000 in travel, hotel and entertainment costs that never appeared on their published expenses.
A check of Companies House records yesterday showed Maclennan was appointed a director of Allied Vehicles Group Ltd in March last year.
SPT accounts show he was paid £153,527 last year. A total of £29,631 was added to his pension. It means he is paid about the same amount as FM Nicola Sturgeon and more than Transport Scotland CEO Roy Brannen, whose salary is about £100,000 a year.
When we put our allegations to the SPT, a spokeswoman said: “We do not comment on individual employee private matters.”
A DVLA spokesman confirmed it was an offence to have the same plate displayed on two different vehicles.
He said: “It is a legal requirement that a vehicle registration number can only be displayed on the vehicle that has been registered to do so by the DVLA.
“Displaying the wrong registration number is an offence.”
Vehicle registration fraud can result in a heavy fine or two years in jail.
Last year, Maclennan's son, who also owns an events company, was reprimanded for working as an Elvis impersonator at a party during lockdown.
The Scottish Government declined to comment.
