UK Offence Report

Declaration as to goods: powers of search

article 7(2) of The Export of Goods (Control) Order 1987

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

2 Any person who without reasonable excuse refuses to make

a declaration, fails to produce any goods or refuses to allow himself to be searched in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this article shall be guilty of an offence and liable to

a customs penalty not exceeding one thousand pounds.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
obstructing an official exercising a power
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 reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised); other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

The defence, as drafted

2 Any person who without reasonable excuse refuses to make a declaration, fails to produce any goods or refuses to allow himself to be searched in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this article shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a customs penalty not exceeding one thousand pounds.

What would breach article 7(2)?

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person without reasonable excuse refuses to make a declaration, fails to produce any goods or refuses to allow himself to be searched in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this article.
  2. Refusing to let an inspector onto premises they are entitled to enter under the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1987.
  3. Sending an official away, or telling staff to say nothing, where the power being exercised does not depend on anyone's consent.
  4. Physically blocking an examination, or removing something an officer has said they intend to inspect.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

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
26 November 1987
In force from
1 January 1988
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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order revokes and replaces the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1985 and the subsequent amendments thereto. The changes (apart from minor and drafting changes) it effects are as follows– Export control is– lifted on fluorotantalates reduced in scope on airborne, ground and marine navigation equipment, industrial transmitter and amplifier equipment, industrial telemetry and facsimile equipment, gyrotron electromagnets, magnetic materials, high-tensile aluminium alloys, fibrous and filamentary materials, electronic components. extended in scope on ballistic protection materials, plutonium, nuclear reprocessing equipment, tritium production equipment, submersible systems, deep submergence vehicles, diode waveguide components, microwave antennae, electronic integrated circuits, polymeric materials. amended in scope on deuterium, electronic measuring instruments, signal analysers, electronic components, polymeric materials, fluorocarbon compounds, compounds used in the synthesis of ultrafine polycrystalline silicon, resist material, certain ultra-pure metallo-organic and hydride compounds. introduced on neptunium, nuclear separation materials, certain secondary (regenerative) cells, molten salt cells, amorphous alloy strips, certain chemicals; and on specific technologies, in respect of which the export of technological documents is controlled to certain destinations, relating to automatically controlled industrial systems, wafer or chip design or processed information inherent in the manufacture of assemblies, modules, integrated circuits or circuit elements, inert gas and vacuum atomising process, radio relay communications equipment, laser resonators, micro-wave assemblies, sub-assemblies or amplifiers, cathode-ray tubes, gallium arsenide-based transistors, image intensifiers, recording or reproducing equipment, oscilloscopes, quartz-crystal elements, gravity meters. The descriptions of goods subject to export control have been amended in respect of induction furnaces, primary cells, electric arc equipment, electronic circuit assemblies. Frequency changers have been transferred from Group 3C to Group 2B. Copies of the British Standards referred to in these Regulations may be obtained from any of the sales outlets operated by the British Standards Institution (BSI), or by post from the BSI at 3 Linford Wood, Milton Keynes, MK14 6LE. Copies of the economic and control rules of the International Cocoa Agreement can be obtained from the International Cocoa Organisation, 22 Berners Street, London W7.

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