Eight cars were seized and three people were arrested during a police operation during which scores of vehicles were stopped in Oxford.

Community beat officers and Police Community Support Officers from Headington teamed up with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) teams in The Slade between noon and 4pm.

ANPR cameras are linked to police and DVLA databases which flag up to police any vehicles linked to criminals, or which are unregistered, uninsured or untaxed.

Police stopped 38 vehicles throughout the operation. One person was arrested for driving while disqualified, one for producing a forged insurance certificate and one because police could not confirm their identity.

Seven cars were seized by police because their drivers did not have insurance, and another eight people driving without insurance were given fixed penalty notices.

Three fixed penalties were issued to people driving with no tax and five to people with no licence. One woman's car was seized because she was driving on her own, without L plates and only held a provisional licence.

She will have to pay £105 plus a daily storage fee to get the vehicle back. Police offered her a lift home.

Pc Matt Booker said: "We offered her a lift because we are not heartless and we do have a duty of care."

Another man was stopped because he was not displaying his tax disc, which was in his glove compartment.

Sgt Eddie Lord, of Thames Valley Police ANPR unit, said the ANPR van monitored traffic going in both directions.

"Should it come up with a hit, operators notify police motorcyclists who will stop the vehicle."

He added that fixed penalty tickets for offences like not wearing a seatbelt were also handed out throughout the operation, but he was unable to give a figure for how many were issued. Sgt Lord added: "It was quite a good operation. There was not a massive volume of traffic, and what we are looking for is the criminal element.

"We are not out to hit middle England, we are trying to target the law breakers."