UK Offence Report

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

article 17 of The Warble Fly (England and Wales) (Infected Areas) Order 1985

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

17 Any person who, without lawful authority or excuse, proof of which shall lie on him—

a contravenes any provision of this order, or any provision or condition of any licence, certificate of exemption or notice issued or served under this order; or

b fails to comply with any such provision or with any condition of any such licence, certificate of exemption or notice; or

c causes or permits any such contravention or non-compliance, commits an offence against the Act.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

17 Any person who, without lawful authority or excuse, proof of which shall lie on him— a contravenes any provision of this order, or any provision or condition of any licence, certificate of exemption or notice issued or served under this order; or b fails to comply with any such provision or with any condition

What would breach article 17?

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 Warble Fly (England and Wales) (Infected Areas) Order 1985, 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 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
Status not determined
Made
2 October 1985
In force from
23 October 1985
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, which applies to England and Wales, enables the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to declare any area in which he believes or suspects the warble fly to exist to be an infected area. The warble fly is an insect which parasitically infests cattle. The order continues to regulate the movement of cattle out of an infected area (article 4), to require cattle in an infected area to be treated (with certain exceptions) (article 5 and 14) and to prohibit the holding of a cattle market in an infected area except under the authority of a licence issued by the local authority (article 10). The only change of substance made by the order is the inclusion of a prohibition on the receipt of untreated cattle from an infected area at a market held outside an infected area unless the market is authorised to receive such cattle by a licence issued by the local authority and the cattle have been moved there under licence. In addition, the further movement of such cattle is permitted only under licence to certain specified destinations (article 11).

Read the full note and every offence in this 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