UK Offence Report

Penalties for contravention of a prohibition notice

regulation 13(1) of The Water Resources (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005

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

a prohibition notice that has been served on him in accordance with regulation

12 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 13(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 a prohibition notice that has been served on him in accordance with regulation 12.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Water Resources (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005, 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
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

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
9 February 2005
In force from
9 March 2005
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 provide (in relation to water management projects for agriculture in Northern Ireland), for the assessment of the effects of such projects on the environment in accordance with Council Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (O.J. No. L175, 5.7.1985, p. 40), as amended by Council Directive 97/11/EC (O.J. No. L73, 14.3.1997, p. 5). The Regulations impose procedural requirements in relation to the consideration of applications or proposals for consent for a relevant project. Part 1 of the Regulations contains general provisions. Regulation 3 requires an environmental impact assessment (EIA) to be carried out for water management projects for agriculture (including irrigation projects) which would be likely to have significant effects on the environment by virtue, inter alia, of their nature, size or location. Projects involving the abstraction of water are only included if the amounts abstracted exceed 200 cubic metres in any 24 hours. There is an exclusion for development within the meaning of the Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1999 and land drainage improvement works within the meaning of the Drainage (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2001. Part 2 of the Regulations outlines the pre-application procedures for an EIA. Regulations 4 and 5 provide the procedure for determining whether a water management project requires an EIA, and require an environmental statement to be provided where an EIA is required. The Department determines, at the request of the person applying or proposing to apply, whether the proposed project is a relevant project, using the selection criteria in Schedule 1. If the person who makes the request is dissatisfied with the Department’s determination, he may apply to the Water Appeals Commission to make its own determination. The determination must be made public, and must accompany any subsequent application for authorisation of the project. Regulation 6 and Schedule 2 set out the information which an environmental statement must contain. The applicant may enter into consultation with any interested person or body to determine whether it possesses information relevant to the environmental statement. The Department is required to give an opinion on the content of an environmental statement if so requested. Part 3 of the Regulations provides for the procedures to be undertaken in relation to relevant projects which require consent under these Regulations. Regulation 7 outlines the application procedure and requires the Department to send copies of the application to the consultation bodies defined in regulation 2. Regulation 8 provides for the application to be publicised. Regulation 9 requires the Department to have regard to the environmental information provided and any representations received in determining the application. A notice of the outcome must be published and must also state where the relevant documentation is available for public inspection. Regulation 10 provides that the Department may grant or refuse such consent taking into account any significant effects the project is likely to have on the environment. Regulation 11 enables the Department to revoke or modify any consent should circumstances change whereby continuation of the consented project is likely to have a significant adverse effect on the environment due to its nature, size and location. Regulation 11 also provides that the Department may at any time modify or revoke a consent or modify or revoke conditions of the consent under certain circumstances. Part 4 of the Regulations enables the Department to issue Prohibition Notices and prosecute any person who contravenes a Prohibition Notice. Part 5 of the Regulations outlines the procedures to be followed in relation to projects likely to affect the Republic of Ireland and those in the Republic likely to affect Northern Ireland. Part 6 of the Regulations provides for offences and appeals in relation to the Department’s decisions on consents, including revocation and modification of consents, and prohibition notices. Regulation 16 makes it an offence to begin or carry out a relevant project without the Department’s consent. Regulations 17 and 18 provide for appeals to be made to the Water Appeals Commission where the applicant/consent holder is dissatisfied with the Department’s decision. Part 7 of the Regulations requires the Department to keep available specified documents for public inspection. Copies of Council Directives 85/337/EEC and 97/11/EC can be obtained from Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 16 Arthur Street, Belfast BT1 4GD.

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