UK Offence Report

Amendment of the Plant Protection Products Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995

regulation 4 of Plant Protection Products (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997 (revoked)

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

4 In regulation 20 (Seizure and disposal of plant protection products)—

a for paragraph (1) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—

1 Where there has been

a contravention, in relation to any plant protection product, of any prohibition, requirement or condition imposed by or under these Regulations in relation to that plant protection product, any Northern Ireland Department shall have the power—

a to seize or dispose of the plant protection product or require the holder of the approval, or any other person appearing to that Department to be the owner or the person in charge of that plant protection product, to dispose of it;

b to seize or dispose of anything treated with the plant protection product or require any person appearing to that Department to be the owner or the person in charge of anything so treated to dispose of it;

c to require the holder of the approval, or any other person appearing to that Department to be the owner or the person in charge of that plant protection product, to take such remedial action as appears to that Department to be necessary as

a result of the contravention including, where it appears to be necessary as

a result of the contravention, recovery of the plant protection product from the market in Northern Ireland. ;

b after paragraph (2) there shall be inserted the following paragraph—

3 Any person who contravenes or causes or permits any person to contravene any requirement imposed under this regulation shall be guilty of an offence. .

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching a condition of a licence, permit or consent
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 regulation 4?

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 or causes or permits any person to contravene any requirement imposed under this regulation.
  2. Holding a valid licence but doing the thing it allows outside the hours, place or limits its conditions set under the Plant Protection Products (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997.
  3. Failing to do something a condition positively requires - a record, a notification, a monitoring step - even though the licensed activity itself is carried on properly.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated here: this instrument amends another one, and the penalty for the offence is in the instrument being amended.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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
28 October 1997
In force from
9 December 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 Regulations.) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations further amend the Plant Protection Products Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995 (S.R. 1995 No. 371), as amended by S.R. 1996 No. 456, (“the principal Regulations”) which implement as respects Northern Ireland Council Directive 91/414/EEC concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market (“the Directive”), as amended by Commission Directive 93/71/EEC, Commission Directive 94/37/EEC, Commission Directive 94/79/EC, Commission Directive 95/35/EC and Commission Directive 95/36/EC, each of which amends Annexes II and III to the Directive. The Regulations make the following principal changes— a the definition of the Directive provided in the principal Regulations is amended in consequence of Commission Directive 96/12/EC and Commission Directive 96/46/EC, each of which amends Annexes II and III to the Directive (regulation 3); b certain modifications are made to the powers of seizure and disposal of plant protection products (regulation 4) and the enforcement of such powers (regulations 5 and 6); c the disapplication of the Control of Pesticides Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987 (S.R. 1987 No. 414) is extended to plant protection products which are approved under regulation 9 of the principal Regulations (regulation 7).

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