UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

article 2 of The Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1988

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 If there is, in respect of any fishing boat to which a relevant Community provision applies, a contravention of, or failure to comply with, that provision within British fishery limits, the master of that boat shall be guilty of an offence and liable— a on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the amount specified in column 4 of the Schedule to this Order opposite the reference to that provision in column 2; or b on conviction on indictment to a fine.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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 article 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. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1988, 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
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

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 Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1989
Revoked on
1 March 1989
Made
26 January 1988
In force from
10 February 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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order, which replaces and revokes the Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1987, makes breaches of specified articles of the Community Regulations set out in column 1 of the Schedule to the Order offences for the purposes of United Kingdom law where they occur within British fishery limits. The Community Regulations authorise fishing in certain specified areas within member States' fishery limits for specified descriptions of fish by vessels of third countries, namely, Sweden, the Faroe Islands and Norway. The offences arise out of breaches of the provisions of the Community Regulations concerning methods of fishing, the holding on board of licences and observance of the conditions thereof, the keeping of log books, the making of radio reports and similar matters; all are triable summarily or on indictment. On summary conviction, the master of an offending vessel will be liable to a fine not exceeding the sum specified in relation to the offence in column 4 of the Schedule to the Order and, on conviction on indictment, to a fine (article 2). The Order confers powers of enforcement on British sea-fishery officers (article 4). Provision is made for the punishment of anyone found guilty of obstructing or assaulting an officer (article 5).

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