UK Offence Report

Penalties

regulation 10(2) of The Merchant Shipping (Operations Book) Regulations 1988

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 Where the owner of a ship contravenes regulation 6(3) he shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum and 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
an owner
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 an owner 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(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 Merchant Shipping (Operations Book) Regulations 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
£2,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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 (International Safety Management (ISM) Code) Regulations 1998
Revoked on
1 July 1998
Made
5 October 1988
In force from
1 December 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, which apply to United Kingdom passenger ships on short sea trades, require all such ships to carry a book (called the operations book) containing instructions and information for safe and efficient operation. Matters to be covered are listed in the Schedule, but provision is made for items adequately covered by Master’s Standing Orders to be omitted. The Regulations also require owners to nominate a person (known as the designated person) to oversee the operation of their ships and to ensure that proper provisions are made so that the requirements of the operation book may be complied with. Owners are required to provide the designated person with sufficient authority and resources to carry out his task. A Master is required generally to operate his ship in accordance with the operations book, but provision is made to ensure that he retains authority to depart from the book if this is necessary in the interests of safety. The operations book and Master’s Standing Orders (if any) must be made available for inspection by Department of Transport Surveyors. Penalties are provided for breach of the Regulations.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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”; the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
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