UK Offence Report

Offences in connection with public equipment

article 18(5) of Weights and Measures (Northern Ireland) Order 1981

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

5 The person making any weighing or measuring equipment available for use by the public shall retain for

a period of not less than two years any record of any weighing or measuring by means of that equipment made by any person appointed to attend to any such weighing or measuring, and any inspector, subject to the production if so requested of his credentials, may require the first-mentioned person to produce any such record for inspection at any time while it is retained by him; and if the first-mentioned person fails so to retain or produce any such record, or if any person wilfully destroys or defaces any such record before the expiration of two years from the date when it was made, the person in question shall be guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 first-mentioned person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Requires proof of a state of mind
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (wilfully).

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: wilfully.

What would breach article 18(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. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Weights and Measures (Northern Ireland) Order 1981.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008
Revoked on
26 May 2008
Made
18 February 1981
In force from
Not determined
Extent
N.I.

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

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”
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