UK Offence Report

The Control of Pollution Act 1974

regulation 10 of Clean Air Enactments (Repeals and Modifications) Regulations 1974

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

10 For subsection (2) of section

78 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 (which relates to cable burning) there shall be substituted the following—

2 A person who contravenes the provisions of the preceding subsection shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding £400;

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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 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 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 regulation 10?

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes the provisions of the preceding subsection.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Clean Air Enactments (Repeals and Modifications) Regulations 1974, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£400
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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 Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 (revoked)
Made
20 December 1974
In force from
1 January 1975
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.

These Regulations contain repeals and modifications of provisions of the following Acts and instruments. (a) the Alkali, &c. Works Regulation Act 1906; (b) the Public Health (Smoke Abatement) Act 1926; (c) the Alkali, &c. Works Regulation Order (Scotland) 1933; (d) the Alkali, &c., Works Regulation (Scotland) Act 1951; (e) the Clean Air Acts 1956 and 1968; (f) the Alkali, &c. Works (Registration) Order, 1957; and (g) the Control of Pollution Act 1974. They are made in consequence of the establishment of the Health and Safety Executive and the coming into opeation on the 1st January 1975 of provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 which supersede or affect the said provisions. The Regulations therefore— (a) transfer certain powers under the Act of 1906 connected with the enforcement of that Act from the Secretary of State to the Health and Safety Executive; (b) transfer the functions of inspectors appointed under the Act of 1906 to inspectors appointed by the Health and Safety Executive under the Act of 1974; (c) apply the penalties prescribed in the Act of 1974 to offences under the Act of 1906 committed on or after 1st January 1975; (d) repeal powers and provisions which are superseded by powers and provisions contained in the Act of 1974.

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.

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