UK Offence Report

1 Where there is, in respect of any– a Scottish fishing boat wherever it may be; or b Community fishing boat…

article 11(1) of The Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Quota and Third Country Fishing Measures) (Scotland) Order 2007

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 Where there is, in respect of any–

a Scottish fishing boat wherever it may be; or

b Community fishing boat or third country fishing boat within the Scottish zone,

a contravention of, or failure to comply with, any Community quota measure, the master, the owner and the charterer (if any) shall each 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 master
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 master 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 11(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 (Enforcement of Community Quota and Third Country Fishing Measures) (Scotland) Order 2007, 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
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 Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Quota and Third Country Fishing Measures and Restriction on Days at Sea) (Scotland) Order 2008
Revoked on
16 April 2008
Made
28 February 2007
In force from
23 March 2007
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, which forms part of the law of Scotland only, makes provision for the enforcement of certain enforceable Community restrictions and other obligations relating to sea fishing by Community vessels and third country vessels set out in Council Regulation (EC) No. 41/2007 (“the Council Regulation”). The Council Regulation fixes total allowable catches and the quotas of Member States for 2007 and lays down certain conditions under which they may be fished. It also authorises fishing by vessels of Norway and the Faroe Islands for specified descriptions of fish in certain specified areas within the fishery limits of Member States in 2007 and imposes requirements concerning fishing quotas and authorised zones, methods of fishing, the holding of licences and observance of licence conditions, the keeping of logbooks, the making of reports and similar matters. The Order makes provision for the purposes of Article 9 of the Council Regulation (requirement for adequate sampling programme when landing unsorted catches) (article 3). The Order makes provision for the Scottish Ministers to approve pelagic weighing systems for fisheries control purposes (article 4). The Order provides that where over 10 tonnes of herring, mackerel or horse mackerel is landed in Scotland buyers or holders of the fish must weigh fresh fish using a pelagic weighing system which is approved by the Scottish Ministers or which has been passed as fit for trade use in accordance with the Weighing Equipment (Beltweighers) Regulations 2001. Frozen fish must be weighed in accordance with either paragraph 1.8.1 or 1.8.2 in Part A of Annex III to the Council Regulation. Failure to comply with any of those provisions is an offence (article 5). Article 5 of the Order is subject to Article 6. Article 6 implements the derogation in paragraph 1.7 of Annex III to the Council Regulation. It allows fresh fish to be transported before being weighed from the port of landing to a place not more than 100 km from the port of landing provided the vehicle in which the fish is transported is accompanied by a British sea fishery officer or an approval has been granted in accordance with article 7 of the Order (article 6). Article 7 sets out the conditions to which an approval is subject. Failure to comply with the conditions is an offence. The Order makes provision in relation to vessels engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the North East Atlantic and the Northwest Atlantic. Offences are created in respect of contraventions or non compliance with certain provisions in Annex XVII to the Council Regulation (articles 8 and 9). The Order makes it an offence to contravene the provision in Annex IA to the Council Regulation in relation to the quantity of dogfish retained on board (article 10). The Order creates offences in respect of contraventions of the provisions of the Council Regulation referred to in column 1 (and briefly described in column 2) of Schedules 1 (Community quota measures), 2 (specified Community provisions) and 3 (Community third country fishing measures) to the Order (articles 11 and 12). The Order provides penalties in relation to an offence under article 3(3) or 4(5) to (7), or 5(4) or 7(4) or 8(1) to (4) or 9(1) to (3) or 10 of the Order or any equivalent provision extending to any other part of the United Kingdom proceedings in respect of which were brought in Scotland by virtue of section 30(2A) of the Fisheries Act 1981 (c. 29). The statutory maximum penalty specified in the Schedules is currently £5,000. The Order also makes provision for additional penalties such as forfeiture (article 12). The Order makes provision in relation to the recovery of fines imposed in respect of such offences or an offence under article 18 (obstruction of officers) (article 13). The Order confers on British sea fishery officers powers of enforcement in relation to fishing boats and on land. These include power 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). The Scottish Ministers are designated as the “competent authorities” for the purposes of paragraph 9.8 of Annex III to the Council Regulation. This gives powers to remove unattended gear at sea in certain circumstances (article 16(3)). Provision is also made in relation to the liability of officers for anything done in the purported exercise of powers conferred by the Order (article 17). The Order creates offences and provides penalties in respect of the obstruction of a British sea fishery officer and makes provision in relation to offences committed by bodies corporate and partnerships and the admissibility of certain documents (articles 18, 19 and 20). The Order revokes the Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Quota and Third Country Fishing Measures) (Scotland) Order 2006 (article 21).

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