UK Offence Report

1 Any person who contravenes, or fails to comply with, a provision of these Regulations or a provision or…

regulation 20(1) of Fish Health Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998 (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

1 Any person who contravenes, or fails to comply with,

a provision of these Regulations or

a provision or requirement of

a notice served in accordance with the provisions of these Regulations, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
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 20(1)?

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 fails to comply with, a provision of these Regulations or a provision or requirement of a notice served in accordance with the provisions of these Regulations.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Fish Health Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

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

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

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
2 September 1998
In force from
16 October 1998
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 revoke and re-enact with amendments the Fish Health Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993 as amended (“the 1993 Regulations”). The Regulations implement in respect of Northern Ireland Council Directive 91/67/EEC (O.J. No. L46, 19.2.91, p. 1) concerning the animal health conditions governing the placing on the market of aquaculture animals and products, as amended, and Council Directive 95/70/EC (O.J. No. L332, 30.12.95, p. 33) introducing minimum Community measures for the control of certain diseases affecting bivalve molluscs, to the extent that they are not implemented by other legislation. The Regulations— a prohibit the placing on the market of aquaculture animals and products unless certain requirements relating to their health status are met (regulation 3); b prohibit the transport of aquaculture animals unless certain requirements relating to the welfare of the aquaculture animals and the prevention of the spread of disease are met (regulation 4); c prohibit the despatch of aquaculture animals and products unless requirements as to identification of the aquaculture animals and products are met (regulation 5); d contain certain requirements concerning movement documents for aquaculture animals and products (regulation 6); e prohibit the introduction into Northern Ireland from elsewhere in the European Community of live fish, eggs and gametes except for tropical fish kept permanently in aquaria (regulation 7 and Schedule 2) and live molluscs, eggs and gametes (regulation 9 and Schedule 4) unless they are accompanied by appropriate movement documents; f prohibit the introduction into Northern Ireland from elsewhere in the European Community of certain dead fish which have not been eviscerated unless they come from areas of appropriate fish health status (regulation 8 and Schedule 3); g set out the requirement for quarantine of certain introductions of wild fish, molluscs and crustacea from the deep sea (regulation 10); h prohibit the export to other parts of the European Community of aquaculture animals and products from Northern Ireland unless they are accompanied by appropriate movement documents where required pursuant to Council Directive 91/67/EEC (regulation 11); i require the notification of certain diseases (regulation 12 and Schedule 1); Apart from the implementation of Council Directive 95/70/EC, the main difference between these Regulations and the 1993 Regulations which they replace, is that these Regulations list in Schedule 6 additional Community instruments which either amend Council Directive 91/67/EEC or are made thereunder. They also implement Commission Decision 94/865/EC (O.J. No. L352, 31.12.94, p. 75) amending Decision 93/44/EEC approving the programmes concerning spring viraemia of carp submitted by the United Kingdom and defining the additional guarantees of certain fish species for consignment to Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and Guernsey and Commission Decision 96/490/EC (O.J. No. L202, 10.8.96, p. 21) on certain protection measures with regard to Gyrodactylus salaris in salmonids.

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