UK Offence Report

Any person who uses, sells or exposes or offers for sale any vessel in which there is a tank which to his…

regulation 8(3) of The Calibration of Tanks of Vessels (EEC Requirements) Regulations 1975

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 Any person who uses, sells or exposes or offers for sale any vessel in which there is a tank which to his knowledge— a bears a sealing mark which is a forgery or counterfeit, or which has been transferred from another tank, or which has been altered or defaced otherwise than under regulation 7 or as permitted by virtue of paragraph (2) above; or b does not comply with the requirements of the Directive by reason of any alteration made in it after the sealing mark was applied to it in accordance with these regulations; shall 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 person
Conduct
selling or supplying something the instrument restricts
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 8(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. Selling the goods under the Calibration of Tanks of Vessels (EEC Requirements) Regulations 1975 where the instrument prohibits the sale outright.
  2. Supplying without carrying out a check the instrument requires first, even where the sale would otherwise be lawful.
  3. Offering for sale counts as well as selling: displaying stock is enough where the provision reaches an offer.

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 Calibration of Tanks of Vessels (EEC Requirements) (Revocation) Regulations 2011
Revoked on
1 July 2011
Made
12 December 1975
In force from
19 January 1976
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 implement Council Directive No. 71/349/EEC relating to the calibration of the tanks of inland waterway vessels and coastal vessels. They provide for the application for calibration to be made to the Secretary of State and for the calibration to be carried out in accordance with the Directive and for the issue of a calibration certificate (regulations 3 and 4). They also provide for the fixing of a calibration plate to the tank and for the application to that plate of a sealing mark in the form of the mark of EEC partial verification described in the Measuring Instruments (EEC Requirements) Regulations 1975 (regulation 4). These Regulations also provide for offences and penalties in connection with the misuse of the sealing mark (regulations 8 and 13), and include powers of inspection of tanks and entry of vessels and premises for the enforcement of the regulations (regulation 9).

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