UK Offence Report

3 Any person who without reasonable excuse fails to comply with a requirement made under regulation 11 shall…

regulation 16(3) of The Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2001

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 Any person who without reasonable excuse fails to comply with

a requirement made under regulation

11 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

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.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

3 Any person who without reasonable excuse fails to comply with a requirement made under regulation 11 shall be guilty of an offence.

What would breach regulation 16(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. On these words an offence is committed where a person without reasonable excuse fails to comply with a requirement made under regulation 11.
  2. Being served with a notice under the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2001 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. 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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2002
Revoked on
22 March 2002
Made
23 February 2001
In force from
19 March 2001
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations make provision for the purposes of implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No.1257/1999 on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1750/1999 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Regulation No. 1257/1999. They apply to holdings which are administered by the Scottish Ministers under the Integrated Administration and Control System Regulations 1993 (regulation 1(2)). Applications for less favoured area support (“LFAS”) are to be made to the Scottish Ministers on a date which they shall determine each year. Failure to meet the deadline will result in reduction of the payment of support (regulation 3). Eligibility for payment of LFAS is dependent upon the applicant meeting the criteria set out in regulation 4. It can only be paid to an applicant who carries out an eligible agricultural activity (defined in regulation 2(1)) on eligible land (defined in regulation 6). No payment will be made where the amount of eligible land is less than 3 hectares (regulation 5). There is provision at regulation 7 to determine to whom payment should be made where a holding is transferred during a Scheme Year. LFAS is paid for eligible hectares on farms in Scottish less-favoured areas at specified rates (regulations 8(1), 9(1), 9(2) and Schedule 1). The number of eligible hectares may be reduced because the applicant does not maintain minimum or average stocking densities, as appropriate (regulations 6(3) and 9(3)). Minimum and average stocking densities are defined in regulation 2(1). There are transitional arrangements for scheme years 2001 to 2003 (regulation 10). For those years LFAS may be increased if an applicant is due to receive less under these Regulations when compared with any payment paid or due under the 1999 Regulations. This is also provision to reduce the payment to be paid under the transitional provisions where the forage area of the holding is reduced by more than 25% during the course of Scheme Years 2001 to 2003 (regulation 10(6)). Regulation 11 contains powers of enforcement. Regulation 13 provides for withholding or recovery of compensatory allowances where there is a breach of the rules of the Scheme. Regulations 16 and 17 deal with offences and penalties. Regulations 20 to 22 deal with an applicants right of appeal against decisions taken by the Scottish Ministers. There is also a consequential amendment to the Agricultural Subsidies (Appeals) (Scotland) Regulations 2000.

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