A person shall be guilty of an offence under this Regulation who in supplying or furnishing any information…

regulation 8(1) of The Carriage of Goods (Prohibition of Discrimination) Regulations 1977

• Status not determined
• Strict liability
• Summary only
• Miscellaneous

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 A person shall be guilty of an offence under this Regulation who in supplying or furnishing any information or particulars to the Secretary of State, in notifying him of any measure, sending any statement to him or in preparing or producing any transport document (including any such other existing document as aforesaid or the recording or accounting systems associated therewith) in accordance with any of these Regulations or the principal Regulation makes

a statement which he knows to be false in

a material particular, or produces, furnishes, sends, prepares, notifies, supplies or otherwise makes use of

a document which he knows to be false in

a material particular.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

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 8(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.

1. Entering a figure on a form or return that is known to be wrong under the Carriage of Goods (Prohibition of Discrimination) Regulations 1977.
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

£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.

• 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

• Any person who carries on a transport undertaking shall be guilty of an offence under this Regulation if…regulation 3(1)
• Except where by virtue of Article 8 or 9 the provisions of Article 6 (concerning transport documents) do not…regulation 4(1)
• Any person who— a fails to comply with any requirement under paragraph 2(a) of this Regulation or to carry…regulation 5(6)
• b wilfully obstructs an examiner or an inspector in the exercise of his powers under paragraph 2(b), 3(b) or…regulation 5(6)(b)
• If any person required to furnish information under this Regulation fails without reasonable excuse to do so…regulation 7(3)
• Without prejudice to Article 22, where a body corporate is guilty of an offence under these Regulations and…regulation 9(1)
• Treaty) who discloses any information in contravention of paragraph (2) of this Regulation shall be guilty…regulation 9(3)

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
• MiscellaneousOther offences on the same subject
• Offences created in 1977