If for the purpose of obtaining a licence under this Order, any person makes any statement or furnishes any…

article 4 of The Import of Goods (Control) Order 1954

• Status not determined
• Requires proof of a state of mind
• Summary only
• Corporate, financial services, company law, employment, charity, electoral and tax

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

4 If for the purpose of obtaining

a licence under this Order, any person makes any statement or furnishes any document or information which to his knowledge is false in

a material particular, or recklessly makes any statement which is false in

a material particular, he shall be guilty of an offence and be liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds or to imprisonment for

a term not exceeding six months, or to both such fine and such imprisonment; and any licence which may have been granted in connection with the application for which the false statement was made or the false document or information was furnished shall be void as from the time when the licence was granted.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

making a false or misleading statement

Fault element

Requires proof of a state of mind

Burden of proof

No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (for the purpose of obtaining, recklessly).

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

Classifier’s reasoning: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: recklessly, for the purpose of obtaining.

What would breach article 4?

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. Entering a figure on a form or return that is known to be wrong under the Import of Goods (Control) Order 1954.
2. Leaving out something the form asks for, where the omission is what makes the answer misleading.
3. Producing a document to an official that has been altered since it was issued.

Penalty

Mode of trial

Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court

Maximum fine

£500

Maximum prison (summary)

6 months

fine stated in words ("five hundred pounds") and never uprated in this instrument.

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.

• Sentencing organisations: fines and the means of a corporate defendant All courts in England and Wales

  How a fine on a company is arrived at from its turnover. Relevant far beyond the guidelines that state it, because a very large share of the offences in this corpus can only be committed by an organisation.

• Fraud, bribery and money laundering offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2014

  Covers fraud, false accounting, bribery and money laundering, including offences committed by organisations.

• Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017

  The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.

• General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019

  The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.

• Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales

  How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

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

14 January 1954

In force from

21 January 1954

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.

This Order supersedes the Import of Goods (Control) Order, 1940, as amended. The principal change is that where false information has been given for the purpose of obtaining a licence, the licence is void from the time when it was granted.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

• Clause 2—(Powers With Respect To Southern Rhodesia) Commons · 15 November 1965 · The Attorney-General

  If a sudden crisis were to arise—again, I do not think that I ought to outline a hypothetical situation which may not arise; one does not want to put ideas into the heads of rebels or, indeed, anyone else in Rhodesia—but if a situation arose in which urgent action of that kind took place involving a fundamental Order in Council taking massive new powers, I have little doubt that the Government would want to consult…

• Textiles (Fibre Content) Commons · 25 May 1984 · Mr. Gary Waller (Keighley)

  Consumer affairs have never featured as prominently on the political scene in this country as they have tended to do in the United States. For instance, Britain does not have a Ralph Nader. Perhaps it should be welcomed that, on the whole, we approach consumer affairs in a relatively pragmatic way, seeking to achieve a satisfactory balance between the interests of the purchaser and the desire not to overload the…

• Import And Export Control Bill Commons · 29 November 1990 · The Minister for Trade (Mr. Tim Sainsbury)

  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. The Bill is short and technical; my speech will be short but I hope not too technical. The Bill repeals section 9(3) of the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act 1939. That subsection provides that the Act will expire when an Order in Council is made declaring that the emergency that was the occasion of the Act's passing is at an end. By repealing…

• Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment No. 2) Order 2010 Lords · 21 July 2010 · The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)

  My Lords, the Order in Council was laid before Parliament on 12 July. If it is made, it will bring a group of cathinone derivatives—so-called legal highs, which include naphthylpyrovalerone, known as naphyrone and commonly branded as NRG-1—under the control of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 as class B drugs. There it will join mephedrone and other cathinone derivatives which were brought under the control of the 1971…

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

• This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
• The Import of Goods (Control) Order 1954 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
• Corporate, financial services, company law, employment, charity, electoral and taxOther offences on the same subject
• Offences created in 1954