UK Offence Report

Special provision with respect to certain dangerous or intractable waste

article 30(2) of The Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997

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

2 Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), the regulations may include provision—

a for the giving of directions by the Department with respect to matters connected with the treatment, keeping or disposal of special waste;

b for securing that special waste is not, while awaiting treatment or disposal in pursuance of the regulations, kept at any one place in quantities greater than those which are prescribed and in circumstances which differ from those which are prescribed;

c in connection with requirements imposed on consignors or consignees of special waste, imposing, in the event of non-compliance, requirements on any person carrying the consignment to re-deliver it as directed;

d for requiring the occupier of premises on which special waste is situated to give notice of that fact and other prescribed information to

a prescribed body;

e for the making and retention of records by the Department and by persons who import, export, carry, produce, keep, treat or dispose of special waste, either directly or as

a broker, or deliver it to another person for keeping, treatment or disposal, for the inspection of the records and for the furnishing by such persons to the Department of copies of or information derived from the records;

f for the keeping in the register under Article 34(1) of copies of such of those records, or such information derived from those records, as may be prescribed;

g providing that

a contravention of the regulations shall be an offence and prescribing the maximum penalty for the offence, which shall not exceed, on summary conviction,

a fine at level

5 on the standard scale and, on conviction on indictment, imprisonment for

a term of

2 years or

a fine or both.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
importing or exporting without authority
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

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

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

What would breach article 30(2)?

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. Moving the goods across the border under the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 without the licence the instrument requires.
  2. Holding a licence for one consignment and using it for another.
  3. Sending goods in transit through the United Kingdom, where the provision catches transit as well as import and export.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
6 months
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
26 November 1997
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— a re-enacts the provisions of Part II of the Pollution Control and Local Government (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 relating to waste on land with modifications as respects the functions of the Department of the Environment and district councils concerned in the collection and disposal of waste and makes further provision in relation to such waste; b makes provision with respect to land contaminated by pollution; c makes provision for the control of the use, supply or storage of prescribed substances and articles; and d confers powers to obtain information about potentially hazardous substances.

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 0.88.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.88 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