UK Offence Report

Meaning of realisable property

paragraph 5(1) of SCHEDULE 3 of The Proceeds of Crime (Countries and Territories designated under the Drug Trafficking Act 1994) Order (Northern Ireland) 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

1 A person shall be guilty of an offence if without reasonable excuse he fails to comply with a requirement imposed on him under paragraph 2 or 3.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

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.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

1 A person shall be guilty of an offence if without reasonable excuse he fails to comply with a requirement imposed on him under paragraph 2 or 3.

What would breach paragraph 5(1) of SCHEDULE 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 a requirement imposed on him under paragraph 2 or 3.
  2. Being served with a notice under the Proceeds of Crime (Countries and Territories designated under the Drug Trafficking Act 1994) Order (Northern Ireland) 1997 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
Not determined
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
6 months
Maximum prison (on indictment)
6 months

the level is stated but no money value is given: this instrument extends outside the United Kingdom, where the standard scale set by s.122(1) of the Sentencing Act 2020 does not run.

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
3 June 1997
In force from
2 July 1997
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 provides that, subject to certain modifications, the Proceeds of Crime (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 applies to an order made by a court in any of the countries or territories listed in Schedule 1 (being countries and territories designated under section 39 of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994) for the purpose of recovering payments or other rewards received in connection with drug trafficking or their value, and to proceedings which have been or are to be instituted in a designated country or territory and may result in such an order being made there. It also provides, in Article 7, that the value of any property recovered in a designated country or territory in response to a request by the government of the United Kingdom for assistance in the enforcement of an order is to be treated as reducing the amount payable in Northern Ireland under a confiscation order made by the Crown Court. Article 2 applies the provisions of the Proceeds of Crime (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, with modifications, to confiscation orders of courts in those countries and territories and proceedings which may lead to such an order being made. The modifications of the Proceeds of Crime (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 are specified in Schedule 2, and Schedule 3 sets out in full that Order as so modified.

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 0.92.

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