Except where by virtue of Article 8 or 9 the provisions of Article 6 (concerning transport documents) do not…

regulation 4(1) of The Carriage of Goods (Prohibition of Discrimination) Regulations 1977

Status not determined
Strict liability
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

1 Except where by virtue of Article 8 or 9 the provisions of Article 6 (concerning transport documents) do not apply to the carriage of goods to which these Regulations apply, and subject to the provisions of the next following paragraph, any person who, in relation to any consignment of goods within the Economic Community, is the carrier of those goods within Great Britain, whether by rail, road or inland waterway, shall be guilty of an offence under this Regulation if— a no transport document giving the details specified in Article 6(1) has at the time when the carriage within Great Britain of the goods so consigned first commences, been properly prepared in duplicate and numbered as required by Article 6, or b one copy of such document does not accompany the goods, to which it relates, or c the other copy thereof is not retained by the carrier for the period, in the manner and showing the charges and other particulars required by Article 6(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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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: breaching the provision
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; other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

What would breach regulation 4(1)?

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.

Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Carriage of Goods (Prohibition of Discrimination) Regulations 1977.

Penalty

Mode of trial: Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine: £200
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.

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: 21 February 1977
In force from: 23 March 1977
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.

The Regulations make for Great Britain provisions supplementary to the requirements of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 11 of 1960 (relating to the abolition of discrimination in transport rates and conditions), which came into force in the United Kingdom on 1st October 1973. Regulation 3 relates to Article 5 of the EEC Council Regulation, dealing with the supply of information on tariffs or agreements concerning transport rates or conditions which vary according to the country of origin or destination of the goods in question. The Regulation makes it an offence for persons carrying on transport undertakings to fail to notify the Secretary of State of measures involving such tariffs or agreements. Regulation 4 relates to Article 6 of the EEC Council Regulation, concerning transport documents, and makes it an offence for a carrier of goods to fail to prepare or maintain the prescribed documents. Regulation 5 deals with the production of transport documents to examiners (as respects carriage by road) and inspectors (as respects carriage by rail and inland waterway) appointed respectively by the Secretary of State and confers on such examiners and inspectors power to enter premises for the purpose of inspecting transport documents. Regulation 6 deals with the supply of information to the Commission of the European Communities, Regulation 7 enables the Secretary of State to require the furnishing to him of information about transport tariffs and about agreements or arrangements on transport rates and conditions in order to enable him to secure the performance of obligations under the EEC Council Regulation, and Regulation 8 relates to the supply of false information. Regulation 9 deals with offences by officers of bodies corporate and persons acting as such officers and also with confidentiality of information. Regulation 10 relates to notices.

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.

Transport (Carriage Of Goods) Commons · 4 May 1977 · Mr. Peter Temple-Morris (Leominster)
I beg to move, That this House takes note of the Carriage of Goods (Prohibition of Discrimination) Regulations 1977 (S.I., 1977, No. 276) dated 21st February 1977, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd March. I am sorry that the object of my first appearance at this illustrious Front Bench is to deal with the implementation of regulations for which there is no cause in the United Kingdom. However, I…
Transport (Carriage Of Goods) Commons · 4 May 1977
Resolved, That this House takes note of the Carriage of Goods (Prohibition of Discrimination) Regulations 1977 (S.I., 1977, No. 276) dated 21st February 1977, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd March.
Transport (Carriage Of Goods) Commons · 4 May 1977
Ordered, That the motion relating to the Carriage of Goods (Prohibition of Discrimination) Regulations 1977 may be proceeded with at this day's sitting, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock.—[Mrs. Ann Taylor.]

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

This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
The Carriage of Goods (Prohibition of Discrimination) Regulations 1977 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 1977