UK Offence Report

Dangerous flying

paragraph Section 11(1) of SCHEDULE 2 of The Civil Aviation Act 1949 (Overseas Territories) Order 1969

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 Where an aircraft is flown in such

a manner as to be the cause of unnecessary danger to any person or property on land or water, the pilot or the person in charge of the aircraft, and also the owner thereof unless he proves to the satisfaction of the court that the aircraft was so flown without his actual fault or privity, shall be liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds or to imprisonment for

a term not exceeding six months or to both such fine and such imprisonment.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Legal burden on the defendant

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.

The provision gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

The defence, as drafted

erson in charge of the aircraft, and also the owner thereof unless he proves to the satisfaction of the court that the aircraft was so flown without his actual fault or privity, shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both such fine a

What would breach paragraph Section 11(1) of SCHEDULE 2?

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 what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Civil Aviation Act 1949 (Overseas Territories) Order 1969.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£200
Maximum prison (summary)
6 months

fine stated in words ("two 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.

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 Civil Aviation (Overseas Territories) (Gibraltar) (Revocations) (No. 2) Order 2008
Made
23 April 1969
In force from
30 April 1969
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.

The legislation relating to Civil Aviation (other than the Carriage by Air Act 1932 and legislation concerned with the constitutions and functions of the state controlled Airways Corporations) was consolidated in the Civil Aviation Act 1949, which was applied, with the necessary modifications and adaptations, to overseas dependent territories by the Colonial Civil Aviation (Application of Act) Order 1952. That Order has been amended several times to take account of the many changes of status and constitution which have occurred in relation to dependent territories and former dependent territories. It has also been amended by the Tokyo Convention Act 1967 (Overseas Territories) Order 1968 (S.I. 1968/1844). The present Order consolidates the previous Orders and also takes account of the repeals contained in the Civil Aviation Act 1968 (c. 61) and the attainment of independence by certain territories; it excludes from its purview Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St. Christopher, Nevis and Anguilla, and St. Lucia, which have become Associated States under the provisions of the West Indies Act 1967 (c. 4).

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 0.72.

Basis
the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
Confidence
0.72 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