UK Offence Report

Amendment to the Bluetongue (Scotland) Order 2008

article 3 of The Trade in Animals and Related Products (Scotland) Amendment Order 2012

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

4 It is an offence against the Animal Health Act 1981 for

a person to fail to comply with paragraph (1), or

a notice served under paragraph (2). .

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
importing or exporting without authority
Fault element
Mixed — some elements strict, some not
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove the conduct, and - for those elements the provision qualifies - the state of mind it names. The remaining elements carry no fault requirement, so they are strict.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no fault word in the offence-creating words, but the surrounding provision uses reasonable cause to suspect - which element it governs was not determined.

What would breach article 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. Moving the goods across the border under the Trade in Animals and Related Products (Scotland) Amendment Order 2012 without the licence the instrument requires.
  2. Holding a licence for one consignment and using it for another.
  3. Sending goods in transit through the United Kingdom, where the provision catches transit as well as import and export.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated here: this instrument amends another one, and the penalty for the offence is in the instrument being amended.

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 Bluetongue (Scotland) Order 2012
Revoked on
24 September 2012
Made
20 June 2012
In force from
1 July 2012
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 corrects errors in the Trade in Animals and Related Products (Scotland) Regulations 2012. Article 2(2) clarifies that disposal of products under regulation 23(3)(b) must be carried out in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down health rules as regards animal by-products and derived products not intended for human consumption and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1774/2002 (known as the animal by-products Regulation). Article 2(3)(a), (b) and (c)(i) makes breach of regulation 6(6) an offence out with the “reasonable excuse” defence in regulation 33. Article 2(3)(c)(ii) corrects an error in a cross-reference in the table in regulation 33. Article 2(3)(c)(iii) and (4) makes an adjustment to the description of paragraph 5(2) of Schedule 2. Article 3 amends the Bluetongue (Scotland) Order 2008. New article 18A prohibits the export to a third country any animal, semen, ovum or embryo that does not comply with Commission Regulation (EC) No 1266/2007 on implementing rules for Council Directive 2000/75/EC as regards the control, monitoring, surveillance and restrictions on movements of certain animals of susceptible species in relation to bluetongue. Article 18A(4) declares that contravention of this prohibition is an offence against the Animal Health Act 1981, as is failure to comply with a notice served by an inspector under new article 18A(2). A business and regulatory impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no new impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen.

Read the full note and every offence in this 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 0.90.

Basis
the provision says “it is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.90 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