UK Offence Report

Penalties

regulation 10(3) of The Merchant Shipping (Weighing of Goods Vehicles and other Cargo) Regulations 1988

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 For any offence under regulation 7(3) or (4), the weighing manager shall be liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding £2,000.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

What would breach regulation 10(3)?

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 what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Merchant Shipping (Weighing of Goods Vehicles and other Cargo) Regulations 1988.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£2,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Merchant Shipping (Weighing of Goods Vehicles and other Cargo) (Revocations) Regulations 2015
Revoked on
6 April 2015
Made
26 July 1988
In force from
1 February 1989
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations apply to United Kingdom Class II and II(A) ro/ro passenger ships, and require the weighing of all road vehicles (except buses) and all non-vehicular items of cargo exceeding, in each case, 7.5 tonnes for all voyages on which passengers are carried. Subject to certain exceptions, cargo must be weighed within the port at which the ship is to be loaded, and the weighing machine must be certified, and operated in accordance with conditions laid down, by an inspector of weights and measures. It is an offence under the Regulations by the master and by the owner or manager of a ship if qualifying cargo is loaded in breach of the Regulations and by the weighing machine manager if the machine is not operated in accordance with the conditions. It is also an offence for any person to supply information for the purposes of the Regulations knowing or having grounds to believe it to be false, knowingly or recklessly to falsify information supplied for the purposes of the Regulations, or materially to change the composition of an item of cargo after it has been weighed without first making arrangements for re-weighing.

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 0.72.

Basis
the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
Confidence
0.72 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