Power to obtain information

article 28(3) of The Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999

• Status not determined
• Strict liability
• Either way
• Energy, communications, water and utilities

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

3 Any person who fails to comply with any direction given under paragraph (1) shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

2 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

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.

What would breach article 28(3)?

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 an offence is committed where a person fails to comply with any direction given under paragraph (1).
2. Being served with a notice under the Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial

Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court

Maximum fine

£500

Standard scale

Level 2

Maximum prison (summary)

Not determined

Maximum prison (on indictment)

3 months

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.

• Environmental offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 July 2014

  Covers unauthorised or harmful deposit, treatment or disposal of waste, illegal discharges to air, land and water, and the equivalent offences committed by organisations. It is the guideline that introduced turnover bands for corporate fines, so the size of the defendant company is a starting point rather than a mitigating detail.

• Health and safety offences, corporate manslaughter and food safety and hygiene offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 February 2016

  Covers breaches of duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the regulations made under it, and food safety and food hygiene offences. Sentencing turns on culpability and on the seriousness and likelihood of harm risked, not only on the harm that happened.

• Imposition of community and custodial sentences: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales

  When a community order or custody is justified at all, and the presumption against short custodial sentences.

• Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017

  The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.

• General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019

  The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.

• Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales

  How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

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

10 March 1999

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 repeals and re-enacts with amendments the Water Act (Northern Ireland) 1972. The principal amendments— a modify the provisions relating to discharge consents; b enable the Department of the Environment to make more extensive provision, by regulations, to prevent pollution; c confer more extensive powers on the Department of the Environment to carry out anti-pollution works and enable the Department to issue notices requiring persons to carry out anti-pollution works; d confer powers on the Department of Agriculture to carry out works in relation to waterways.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

• SCHEDULE 1SCHEDULE 1
• Relationship with other statutory provisions controlling pollutionarticle 10(1)
• Enforcement noticesarticle 12(3)
• Regulations as to prevention of pollutionarticle 14(2)
• Regulations as to prevention of pollutionarticle 14(2)(c)
• Pollution emergenciesarticle 15(6)
• Consequences of not complying with a works noticearticle 19(1)
• Supplementary provisions as to powers of entry and inspectionarticle 26(5)
• Supplementary provisions as to powers of entry and inspectionarticle 26(6)
• Penalties for false informationarticle 29
• Abandoned minesarticle 35(3)
• Regulation of recreational and navigational use of waterwaysarticle 49(4)

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

• This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
• The Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
• Energy, communications, water and utilitiesOther offences on the same subject
• Offences created in 1999