What did they actually say though? You asking for details because of an accident is a lot different to someone searching online.
No, it doesn't. It's an indicator, but it could be someone typing the wrong reg, or checking a car in a photo, or even just idly seeing if a car they used to own is still on the road. I ask again, if someone
just searches a vehicle that shows no MOT,
what specifically do DVLA do?
Having worked in IT for public sector bodies, I'd bet they do absolutely nothing. Perhaps if specific cars show up on a lot of searches from different IPs they might ask police to look out for it, even then I'd be sceptical. It's going to show up if it gets a ping on ANPR in any case.
I've just spent a few minutes looking up cars I used to own. A couple of older ones are showing no current MOT. Actually they are showing overdue for their first MOT! Which isn't that surprising as they would have been paper ones from the 1990s and won't have been migrated to the new database. I somewhat doubt I've sparked a wild goose chase for 2 cars that were probably melted down 25 years ago.