I have been running with misplaced plates for approximately 4 years & never been pulled, stopped or questioned by the police - standard font just the space in the wrong place.
However turning up to my local dvla office with said plates on the car, application to transfer in hand, was, with hindsight stupid
I disagree with comments about plates I'm a fancy plate lover & proud - within reason as long as the fon't isn't stupid
Dvla charge a fortune to buy plates that look like names, words etc – even have auctions to push the price of plates up further, and then accompany that with the stick if you misrepresent them then they’d rather you didn’t buy them, but we’ll still charge you for the privilege.