UK Offence Report

Penalties

regulation 9 of The Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations 1989

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

9 Any person who contravenes any of the foregoing regulations shall be guilty of an offence, and liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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; other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

What would breach regulation 9?

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes any of the foregoing regulations.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations 1989, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£2,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1989-09-01); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean an unlimited fine.

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
Status not determined
Made
24 July 1989
In force from
1 September 1989
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

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

These Regulations implement Council Directive No. 86/278/EEC (OJ No. L181/6) on the protection of the environment, and in particular of the soil, when sewage sludge is used in agriculture. Regulation 3 prohibits sludge from sewage plants from being used in agriculture unless specified requirements are fulfilled. They include the testing of the sludge and the soil (Schedules 1 and 2). Regulation 4 specifies precautions which must be taken after sludge from sewage plants or septic tanks is used on agricultural land. Regulation 5 requires the occupier of land on which sludge has been used to provide the sludge producer with information about the land and the sludge used. Regulations 6 and 7 require every sludge producer to maintain a register of the quantities of sludge produced and supplied for use in agriculture, including details of the amount of sludge used on each agricultural unit and the results of analysis of the sludge and the soil. The register is to be available to the Secretary of State for inspection, together with such information or facilities as he may reasonably require, including facilities for analysing the sludge or soil. The sludge producer is required to provide persons he supplies with the results of analysis of the sludge. Regulation 8 makes special provision for dedicated sites, which on 17th June 1986 (the date of notification of the Directive) were dedicated to the disposal of sludge but on which commercial food crops were being grown exclusively for animal consumption. Regulation 9 provides an offence of contravening the Regulations, which carries a maximum fine on summary conviction of level 5 on the standard scale.

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.

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