UK Offence Report

Offences and Penalties

regulation 7 of The Merchant Shipping (Provisions and Water) Regulations 1989

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

7 Where an offence under any of these Regulations is committed, or would have been committed except for the operation of regulation 6(3), by any person due to the act or default of some other person, that other person shall be guilty of an offence, and

a person may be charged with and convicted of the offence by virtue of this regulation whether or not proceedings are taken against the first-mentioned person.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 7?

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 (Provisions and Water) Regulations 1989.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

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 Merchant Shipping (Work in Fishing Convention) Regulations 2018
Made
24 January 1989
In force from
1 March 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 supersede existing Regulations laying down the requirements as to provisions and water to be provided for seamen employed in ships (including fishing vessels). The Regulations differ from earlier requirements in that – i they include only a general duty to provide adequate provision and water instead of laying down detailed scales; ii the substance of the Regulations applies also to non-United Kingdom ships other than fishing vessels, when in United Kingdom ports. The command papers containing I.L.O. Conventions 147 and 68, Cmnd. 7163 and Cmnd. 7273 are no longer in print, but photocopies of them may be obtained through Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Copies of I.L.O. Conventions may also be obtained from the United Kingdom Office of the I.L.O., Vincent House, Vincent Square, London SW1P 2NB.

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