UK Offence Report

5 A person who contravenes regulation 4(1) or fails to comply with any condition or requirement specified in…

regulation 5 of The Control of Asbestos in Water Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995

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

5 A person who contravenes regulation 4(1) or fails to comply with any condition or requirement specified in

a consent granted under regulation 4(1) shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on summary conviction, to

a fine not exceeding level

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

a term not exceeding

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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; qualified by absence of consent (an element).

What would breach regulation 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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes regulation 4(1) or fails to comply with any condition or requirement specified in a consent granted under regulation 4(1).
  2. Being served with a notice under the Control of Asbestos in Water Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995 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
£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
15 March 1995
In force from
1 May 1995
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 Regulations.) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations implement the requirements of Council Directive 87/217/EEC (“the Directive”) on the prevention and reduction of environmental pollution by asbestos, in relation to asbestos emissions into the aquatic environment. Regulation 3 requires the Department of the Environment to take, in accordance with the Directive, the measures necessary to reduce at source and prevent, as far as is reasonably practicable, discharges of asbestos into the aquatic environment. Regulation 4 provides that a person shall not without the written consent of the Department make a discharge of asbestos into the aquatic environment and that any such consent shall specify emission standards, conditions and limits in accordance with Article 5 of the Directive. Regulation 5 provides that a person who contravenes regulation 4(1) or fails to comply with any condition or requirement specified in a consent granted under regulation 4(1) shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (£5,000). On conviction on indictment the prescribed penalty is an unlimited fine or a term of imprisonment not exceeding 2 years or both. Copies of the Directive and of extracts from the Official Journal of the European Communities may be obtained from Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 16 Arthur Street, Belfast BT1 4GD.

Read the full note and every offence in this 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