UK Offence Report

Channel tunnel customs approved areas

article 3(7) of The Channel Tunnel (Customs and Excise) Order 1990

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

7 Any person contravening or failing to comply with paragraph (6) above or with any condition or restriction imposed by the Commissioners under paragraph (1) above shall be liable on summary conviction to

a penalty not exceeding level

3 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching a condition of a licence, permit or consent
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 3(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. Holding a valid licence but doing the thing it allows outside the hours, place or limits its conditions set under the Channel Tunnel (Customs and Excise) Order 1990.
  2. Failing to do something a condition positively requires - a record, a notification, a monitoring step - even though the licensed activity itself is carried on properly.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
Not determined
Standard scale
Level 3
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

the level is stated but no money value is given: this instrument extends outside the United Kingdom, where the standard scale set by s.122(1) of the Sentencing Act 2020 does not run.

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
Status not determined
Made
1 November 1990
In force from
1 December 1990
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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

The effect of this Order is to make such additional provision as is considered necessary or expedient for customs and excise control consequent upon the establishment of a tunnel link between the United Kingdom and France. Article 3 permits the Commissioners of Customs and Excise to approve one or more areas (“customs approved areas”) for the purpose of such controls and to impose conditions and restrictions in respect of any such area. It also– a allows an officer of Customs and Excise to enter such area and inspect it and any buildings and goods in it, b requires that the unloading of goods imported through the tunnel and the loading of goods to be exported through the tunnel may take place only in such an area, and c makes it an offence, triable summarily, to contravene or fail to comply with the provisions of this article as to the loading and unloading of goods or any conditions and restrictions imposed under it. Article 4 and the Schedule modify certain sections of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 to adapt them to the circumstances of the tunnel. Article 5 makes provision, in respect of goods imported and exported through the tunnel, as to the time when such importation and exportation is to be treated as having occurred.

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 0.72.

Basis
the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
Confidence
0.72 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