UK Offence Report

Power of registrar to require information

article 10(5) of Pharmacy (Northern Ireland) Order 1976

The instrument creating this offence has not been revoked so far as the data shows.

What the provision says

5 Where a person on whom a notice has been served under paragraph (2), fails to comply with the notice, a retail pharmacy business shall not be carried on the premises and any person carrying on such a business in contravention of this paragraph shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale, unless he proves to the satisfaction of the court that he did not know of the failure to comply with the notice.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
failing to comply with a notice or direction
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Legal burden on the defendant

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

The defence, as drafted

tion to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale, unless he proves to the satisfaction of the court that he did not know of the failure to comply with the notice.

What would breach article 10(5)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Being served with a notice under the Pharmacy (Northern Ireland) Order 1976 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£500
Standard scale
Level 2
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

in Northern Ireland a reference to a level is construed as referring to the standard scale as it currently stands (Fines and Penalties (NI) Order 1984 art.5(3)), not as it stood when the instrument was made.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
In force
Made
30 July 1976
In force from
Not determined
Extent
N.I.

How this was established: read from the revised (currently in force) text.

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”; the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source