UK Offence Report

Absences from port etc

article 3(1) of The Sea Fishing (Restriction on Days at Sea) Order (Northern Ireland) 2003 (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 Subject to regulation 4,

a person in charge of

a relevant British fishing boat which, during any part of the period specified in paragraph 1 (duration of controls) of Annex XVII, either –

a contravenes –

i the relevant prohibition in paragraph 6(a) (absences from port), or

ii paragraph 7 (single type of gear), 8 (use of gear in different areas) or 9 (use of gears in given periods) of Annex XVII, or

b is absent from port in excess of the number of days permitted to it by the following provisions of this Article, is 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 article 3(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. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Sea Fishing (Restriction on Days at Sea) Order (Northern Ireland) 2003, whatever the reason for doing it.
  2. 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
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

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
7 February 2003
In force from
8 February 2003
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 for the enforcement in Northern Ireland of the provisions of Annex XVII (“the Annex”) to Council Regulation 2341/2002 (O.J. No. L356, 31.12.2002, p. 12) fixing for certain fish stocks and groups of fish stocks the fishing opportunities in Community waters for 2003. The Order contains provisions relating to the calculation of the number of days on which a vessel may be absent from port for the purposes of the Annex (Article 3(2)-(8)) and the transfer of days from one period to another (Article 5) and from one vessel to another (Article 6 and Schedule 1). The Order creates offences in respect of breaches, by a person in charge of a relevant British fishing boat (as defined in the Order), of the provisions of paragraphs 6(a) (absence from port in excess of number of permitted days), 7 (use of single type of gear), 8 (use of gear in different areas) and 9 (use of gears in given periods) of the Annex (Article 3(1)), as qualified by a defence for unwitting recipients of excess days (Article 3(9)). An offence is not committed where a boat would not have exceeded its permitted days under the Annex if the management periods were one month, rather than two months in length (Article 4). The Order also creates offences in respect of breaches of other provisions of the Annex (Articles 8, 9 and 10) relating to landing cod without advance notice (paragraph 13) or at an unauthorised location (paragraph 14), mixing of cod and other species on board (paragraph 17) or transportation of cod on land without an accompanying landing declaration (paragraph 20). It also imposes additional requirements relating to logbooks (Article 11). Failure to comply with those requirements is an offence, as is the making of a false statement by any person in a notification under Article 6(2) (Article 6(6)). The application of the Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Control Measures) 2000 (S.I. 2000/51) is extended in pursuance of paragraph 12 of the Annex (Article 7). The Order provides that a person guilty of an offence under it other than an offence under Article 18(1) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £50,000 and on conviction on indictment to a fine. Further fines up to and including the value of any fish caught in committing the offence are permitted and the court may also order the seizure of fish caught or equipment used in, or in activities leading to, the commission of the offence (Article 12). The Order also provides for the recovery of fines imposed, or treated as imposed, by a magistrates' court in Northern Ireland (Article 13). For the purposes of enforcing provisions of the Annex the Order confers on British sea-fishery officers the powers to enter premises, to go on board fishing boats, to stop and search vehicles transporting fish, to examine fish, to require the production of documents, to search for and seize documents, to take a boat to the nearest convenient port and to seize fish and fishing gear (Articles 14, 15 and 16). Protection of such officers from liability is set out in Article 17, and impeding them is an offence under Article 18, with a fine of up to the statutory maximum on summary conviction and a fine on conviction on indictment. Articles 19 and 20 deal with corporate and equivalent offences and admissibility of documents in evidence. A Regulatory Impact Assessment in relation to the Annex and this Order has been prepared and placed in the library of each House of Parliament. Copies can be obtained from Defra, Fisheries Division I, 4th Floor, Nobel House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR.

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