UK Offence Report

Regulations to be treated as safety regulations within the meaning of the 1987 Act.

regulation 14(2) of The Low Voltage Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1989

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 Where a contravention of regulation 11 above arises from the supply of electrical equipment which fails to satisfy the requirements of regulation 5(1) above or of goods which would cause the relevant equipment to contravene those requirements because there is in each case a risk of death or injury to domestic animals or damage to property, or both, but no risk of the death of a person or of personal injury the person who contravenes regulation 11 shall be guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction with imprisonment for not more than three months or with a fine not exceeding level five 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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.

What would breach regulation 14(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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes regulation 11.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Low Voltage Electrical Equipment (Safety) 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
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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 Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1994 (revoked)
Revoked on
9 January 1995
Made
26 April 1989
In force from
1 June 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 implement Council Directive No. 73/23/EEC (OJ No. L77, 26.3.73, p.29) on the harmonisation of the laws of member States relating to electrical equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits. They revoke the Electric Blankets (Safety) Regulations 1971, the Electric Blankets (Safety) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1972, the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1975, the Electrical Equipment (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 1976 and the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1977 and provide that the Heating Appliances (Fireguards) Regulations 1973 and the Heating Appliances (Fireguards) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1975 no longer apply to electrical equipment to which these Regulations apply, that is, any electrical equipment designed or adapted for use with voltage (in the case of alternating current) of between 50 and 1,000 volts or (in the case of direct current) of between 75 and 1,500 volts, except equipment mentioned in Schedule 1 to the Regulations or supplied for export to a place outside the European Economic Community. The Regulations require electrical equipment to be safe and constructed in accordance with engineering practice generally accepted as good in the EEC (regulation 5(1)). “Safe” has the same meaning as in section 19(1) of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 except that the risk of death or injury to domestic animals or of damage to property is treated as being included in the risks there mentioned and a risk arising from the improper installation or maintenance of the equipment or from its use for unintended purposes is treated as being excluded (regulation 3(1)). The Regulations require due account to be taken of the principal elements of the safety objectives for electrical equipment in Schedule 2 to the Regulations when deciding whether regulation 5(1) is satisfied (regulation 5(2)). The following electrical equipment is to be taken (subject to regulation 8) to satisfy article 5(1):– equipment which satisfies the safety provisions of standards harmonised in accordance with article 5 of the Directive (regulation 6); if there are no relevant harmonised standards, equipment which satisfies international safety provisions, that is, the safety provisions of standards published by the International Commission on the Rules for the Approval of Electrical Equipment or the International Electrotechnical Commission and published in the Official Journal of the Communities (regulation 7(1)); if there are no harmonised standards and no international safety provisions– equipment manufactured in accordance with national safety provisions of a member State, where compliance has the result that when it is supplied in the United Kingdom it is at least as safe as if it complied with regulation 5(1) (regulation 7(2)(a)); equipment which satisfies the safety provisions in standards published by national standards bodies which have been approved under the Approval of Safety Standards Regulations 1987 (regulation 7(2)(b)). Equipment to which the relevant statutory provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 or of the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 and which complies with those provisions is to be taken as complying with regulation 5(1) (regulation 7(3)). Regulation 8 (which lays down conditions which are designed to ensure that the equipment can be safely used in the United Kingdom) applies to all electrical equipment except that to which regulation 7(3) applies. Regulation 9 provides that for the purpose of showing that electrical equipment complies with regulation 5(1) a report of a body notified under the Directive procedure may be relied upon and requires any person or court called upon to decide whether regulation 5(1) is satisfied to take due account of any such report. Regulation 10 provides that electrical equipment is to be taken, unless the contrary is proved, as complying with the safety provisions of harmonised standards, international safety provisions or regulation 7(2)(a) or (b) where it bears the mark of a body notified under article 11 of the Directive or is accompanied by a certificate issued by such a body or, in the absence of such a certificate, by the manufacturer’s written declaration indicating (in each case) such compliance. Regulation 11 prohibits the supply of electrical equipment which does not satisfy regulation 5(1) and of goods designed to be used as parts of electrical equipment which would, if used in that way, result in the equipment not complying with that regulation. Contravention of regulation 11 is a criminal offence by virtue of section 12 of the 1987 Act. Regulation 13 enables summary proceedings to be instituted for an offence under the Regulations within twelve months of the commission of the offence. Regulation 14 provides that where a contravention of regulation 11 arises from the supply of goods which involve a risk of injury to animals or damage to property (or both) but no risk to human beings the person who contravenes the regulation is to be guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction with a maximum of three months' imprisonment or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale. In other cases the penalty for a contravention of regulation 12 is a maximum of six months' imprisonment or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or both, by virtue of section 12(5) of the 1987 Act. Copies of the CENELEC Harmonisation Documents, harmonised standards and international safety provisions referred to in the Regulations may be obtained from the Marketing Department, BSI, 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 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”; the provision says the conduct is “punishable”
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