UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel and Lubricants) Regulations 1988

the instrument as a whole of The Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel and Lubricants) Regulations 1988

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

Contravening this instrument is an offence under section

84 of the Weights and Measures Act 1985. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

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.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

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 Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel and Lubricants) Regulations 1988.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to section 84 of the Weights and Measures Act 1985.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel and Lubricants) Regulations 1995
Revoked on
4 May 1995
Made
28 January 1988
In force from
1 March 1988
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 replace the Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel and Lubricants) Regulations 1983 as amended. They apply to all measuring equipment, other than capacity measures and those used for the measurement of liquefied petroleum gas, for use for trade in the making of any measurement of liquid fuel or lubricants or any mixture of such fuel and lubricants in a quantity not exceeding 20 gallons or 100 litres. They make provision as to the principles of construction and marking of measuring equipment, inspection, testing, passing as fit for use for trade and stamping of such equipment (and obliteration of stamps on such equipment), and the prescribed limits of error. The Regulations prescribe this equipment for the purposes of section 11(1) of the Weights and Measures Act 1985 so that it is unlawful to use it for trade purposes unless it has been tested, passed as fit for such use and stamped by an inspector of weights and measures. The Regulations make the following changes of substance— a the definition of “grade” has been amended to refer to the revised British Standard Specification for leaded petrol and to include the Specification for unleaded petrol (regulation 1(2)); b provision has been included for an inspector to be supplied with other equipment necessary to enable him to carry out his functions (eg magnetic cards and padlock keys so that at unattended petrol stations he can return to the storage tanks fuel drawn for testing purposes) (regulation 14); and c with one exception provisions concerned with the conversion of equipment from halfpenny rounding to penny rounding in the price to pay as a result of the demonetisation of the halfpenny have been omitted, as this process has been completed; the exception prevents such equipment being passed as fit for use for trade in the future (regulation 18(2)). Copies of British Standards (see regulation 1(2)) can be obtained from any of the sales outlets operated by the British Standards Institution (BSI) or by post from the BSI at Linford Wood, Milton Keynes, MK14 6LE.

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 0.54.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.54 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