Our legal advisor, Lucy Bonham Carter, replies: “They cannot take the car away because you did not have your licence to hand but they can take it away if you do not have a licence. If you’re disqualified for 56 days or more you need to apply to renew your driving licence before you can return to driving so in your case at the time you were stopped you did not have a licence and the police were perfectly within their rights to lift the car. In such circumstances the car being lifted is part of the "deterrence" as well as prevention of you committing a future offence and there is no requirement on the part of the police to facilitate or allow your girlfriend to take over the driving.”