UK Offence Report

Amendment of the Cattle Identification (Notification of Births, Deaths and Movements) Regulations (Northern…

regulation 4(3) of Identification and Notification of Cattle Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2004

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

3 In regulation

5 for paragraph (1) there shall be substituted the following paragraph –

1 Any person who fails to comply with the requirement to notify the birth, movement or death of any animal in accordance with the second indent of Article 7.1 of the Council Regulation either in the manner provided for in, or within the time limits specified by, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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.

What would breach regulation 4(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. Being served with a notice under the Identification and Notification of Cattle Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2004 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

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
4 October 2004
In force from
1 November 2004
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.

The Regulations amend regulations 2(1), 7, 15 and 17 respectively of the Cattle Identification (No. 2) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998 (“the 1998 Regulations”) so as to – a substitute reference to Council Regulation 820/97 (O.J. No. L117, 7.5. 1997, p. 1) establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef products with reference to Regulation (EC) No. 1760/2000 (O.J. No. L204, 11.8.2000, p. 1) establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products and repealing Council Regulation (EC) 820/97; b make it an offence for a person, except with the permission of the Department, to transfer an ear tag from an animal or carcase to any other animal or to use for identifying any animal an ear tag which had previously been used to identify another animal; c permit the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to serve a notice on a keeper of animals restricting the movement of cattle onto a holding; and d deem any offence against the 1998 Regulations to also be an offence against Article 18(6) of the Diseases of Animals (Northern Ireland) Order 1981 for the purpose of withholding compensation or other payment in respect of an animal slaughtered under that Order (regulation 2). Amendments for a purpose similar to (a) and (d) above are made to the Cattle Identification (Enforcement) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998, the Cattle Identification (Notification of Births, Deaths and Movements) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1999 and the Cattle Passport Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1999 (regulations 3, 4(2) and 5). The Cattle Identification (Notification of Births, Deaths and Movements) Regulations are further amended so as to make it an offence under regulation 5(1) to fail to notify the birth, movement or death of any animal either in the manner provided for in, or within the time limits specified by, the Regulations (regulation 4(3)).

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