UK Offence Report

Any person who, without lawful authority or excuse, proof whereof shall lie on him— a contravenes any…

article 9 of The Importation of Processed Animal Protein (Amendment) Order 1982

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

9 Any person who, without lawful authority or excuse, proof whereof shall lie on him—

a contravenes any provision of this order or of

a licence or of

a notice served under this order; or

b fails to comply with any such provision or with any condition of

a licence; or

c causes or permits any such contravention or noncompliance, commits an offence against the Animal Health Act 1981.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

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.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by lawful excuse (an element).

The defence, as drafted

9 Any person who, without lawful authority or excuse, proof whereof shall lie on him— a contravenes any provision of this order or of a licence or of a notice served under this order; or b fails to comply with any such provision or with any condition of a licence; or c causes or permits any such contravention o

What would breach article 9?

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 the thing the provision prohibits under the Importation of Processed Animal Protein (Amendment) Order 1982, whatever the reason for doing it.
  2. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated here: this instrument amends another one, and the penalty for the offence is in the instrument being amended.

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
Status not determined
Made
25 March 1982
In force from
29 April 1982
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.

This Order amends the Importation of Processed Animal Protein Order 1981 by— providing that a person on whom a notice is served under article 6, requiring him to export or destroy or treat processed animal protein or a product containing processed animal protein which has been landed in contravention of the Order, may choose which of those courses of action to follow (Article 2(a)); providing that a person in charge of processed animal protein or of a product containing processed animal protein on whom a notice is served under article 6 may recover from the owner any reasonable expenses incurred by him in complying with the notice (Article 2(a)) and also by providing that where the appropriate Minister has recovered from such a person (under article 7(2) of the Order) any reasonable expenses arising out of the exercise of any power conferred on an authorised officer by the Order he may recover such expenses from the owner (Article 2(b)); and by making it clear that the words “without lawful authority or excuse, proof whereof shall lie on him” in article 9 apply to all the offences created by that article (Article 2(c)).

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 “commits 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