UK Offence Report

Penalties

regulation 24(1) of The Merchant Shipping (Life-Saving Appliances for Passenger Ships of Classes III to VI (A)) Regulations 1992

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 If a ship to which these Regulations apply proceeds on any voyage without complying with the requirments of these Regulations, the owner and master of the ship shall each be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years and 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
a master
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 master 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 24(1)?

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 (Life-Saving Appliances for Passenger Ships of Classes III to VI (A)) Regulations 1992.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

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 (Life-Saving Appliances For Passenger Ships Of Classes III To VI(A)) Regulations 1999
Revoked on
29 October 1999
Made
1 October 1992
In force from
31 October 1992
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 apply from 31st October 1992 to a new United Kingdom passenger ships of Classes III, IV, V, VI and VI(A) constructed after that date and to existing United Kingdom passenger ships of these Classes as indicated in regulation 1(1) and they revise the carriage requirements for life-saving appliances of these passenger ships. They revoke the Merchant Shipping (Life-Saving Appliances) Regulations 1980 to the extent that they apply to new United Kingdom Class III, IV, V, VI and VI(A) passenger ships. This revocation will also apply to “existing” ships of the above Classes that is ships built or constructed before the 31st October 1992. These Regulations harmonize the requirements for life-saving appliances for passenger ships of Classes III, IV, V, VI and VI(A) with those for passenger ships of the Classes included in the Merchant Shipping (Life-Saving Appliances) Regulations 1986 while taking into account the restricted service in which these Classes of passenger ships are engaged. In particular for new ships they introduce the provision of out of water support for all persons on board in the form of open reversible liferafts except for certain Class V and VI ships where buoyant apparatus is generally provided. For existing ships generally a combination of liferafts and buoyant apparatus is provided the percentage of which is dependent upon the ships standard of survivability. The provision of personal buoyancy equipment in the form of various types of lifejackets or buoyancy aids except in the case of certain ships of Class V operating solely within Category “A” and “B” waters are required.

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”
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