UK Offence Report

Obstruction of officers

article 18(1) of The Sea Fishing (Restriction on Days at Sea) (Scotland) Order 2003

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 Any person who– a fails without reasonable excuse to comply with any requirement imposed by a British sea fishery officer under the powers conferred on such officers by articles 14 to 16 of this Order; b without reasonable excuse prevents, or attempts to prevent, any other person from complying with any such requirement; or c intentionally obstructs any such officer in the exercise of any of those powers, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
obstructing an official exercising a power
Fault element
Requires proof of a state of mind
Burden of proof
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (intentionally).

“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: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: intentionally; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

1 Any person who– a fails without reasonable excuse to comply with any requirement imposed by a British sea fishery officer under the powers conferred on such officers by articles 14 to 16 of this Order; b without reasonable excuse prevents, or attempts to prevent, any other person from complying with any such

What would breach article 18(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. Refusing to let an inspector onto premises they are entitled to enter under the Sea Fishing (Restriction on Days at Sea) (Scotland) Order 2003.
  2. Sending an official away, or telling staff to say nothing, where the power being exercised does not depend on anyone's consent.
  3. Physically blocking an examination, or removing something an officer has said they intend to inspect.

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Sea Fishing (Restriction on Days at Sea) (Scotland) Order 2004
Revoked on
1 February 2004
Made
31 January 2003
In force from
1 February 2003
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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order provides for the enforcement in Scotland of the provisions of Annex XVII (“the Annex”) to Council Regulation 2341/2002 (O.J. No. L 356, 31.12.02, p.12) (“the Council Regulation”) 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) to (7)) and makes clear, in particular in relation to the types of gear at paragraph 4(a) of the Annex, that the number of fishing days available cannot exceed the total calculated under paragraph 6 of the Annex (article 3(8)). It also contains provisions relating to absence from port in specified circumstances (article 4) and the transfer of days from one period to another (article 5) and from one vessel to another (article 6). By virtue of article 8(2), the ports named in the Schedule are designated, for the purposes of paragraph 14 of the Annex. The Order creates offences in respect of contraventions, by a person in charge of a relevant British fishing boat (as defined in the Order), of the provisions of paragraphs 6 (absence from port in excess of number of permitted days), 7 (single type of gear), 8 (use of gear in different areas) and 9 (use of gears in different periods) of the Annex (article 3(1)). The Order also creates offences in respect of contraventions by certain persons of other provisions of the Annex (articles 8, 9, 10 and 11) and in respect of the making of a false statement by any person in a notification under article 6(2) (article 6(6)) and extends the application of the Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Control Measures) (Scotland) Order 2000 (S.S.I. 2000/7) in pursuance of the Annex (article 7). The Order provides for the recovery of fines imposed in respect of a relevant offence as defined in the Order (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 to 17). A Regulatory Impact Assessment in the relation to the Annex has been prepared and placed in SPICE. Copies can be obtained from the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department, Robb’s Loan, Edinburgh, EH14 1TY.

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