UK Offence Report

Special procedure in case of serious risk: prohibition notices

article 12 of The Fire Services (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 (repealed)

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

Provision as to offences 33B

1 It shall be an offence for any person to contravene any prohibition or restriction imposed by

a prohibition 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
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

than the person on whom the prohibition notice was served, it shall be a defence for that person to prove that he did not know and had no reason to believe the notice had been served. 3 Any person guilty of an offence under paragraph (1) shall be liable— a on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum; b on conviction on indictment, to a fi

What would breach article 12?

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. On these words it is an offence to contravene any prohibition or restriction imposed by a prohibition notice.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Fire Services (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1993, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

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
Status not determined
Made
23 June 1993
In force from
Not determined
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order makes miscellaneous amendments to the Fire Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1984 relating to fire precautions. The principal amendments concern— a exemptions from requirement to have fire certificates (Articles 6 and 7); b charges for fire certification work (Article 8); c codes of practice as to means of escape and for fighting fire and improvement notices (Article 9); d safety pending determination of applications for fire certificates (Articles 10 and 11); e prohibition notices in cases of serious risk (Article 12); f inspections of premises (Article 13); g removal of exemption for premises used for public religious worship (Article 16); and h functions of the Department of the Environment with respect to fire safety and vehicles for emergency fire fighting (Article 21).

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

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 0.90.

Basis
the provision says “it is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.90 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