UK Offence Report

An operator who fails to comply with any of the requirements imposed by virtue of regulation 5A above is…

regulation 5C(1) of The Controlled Drugs (Substances Useful for Manufacture) (Amendment) Regulations 1992

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

1 An operator who fails to comply with any of the requirements imposed by virtue of regulation 5A above is guilty of an offence and liable to the same penalties as an operator who is guilty of an offence under regulation 5B above.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
an operator
Conduct
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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 an operator 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 5C(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. On these words an offence is committed where an operator fails to comply with any of the requirements imposed by virtue of regulation 5A above.
  2. Being served with a notice under the Controlled Drugs (Substances Useful for Manufacture) (Amendment) Regulations 1992 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

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

no penalty is stated here: this instrument amends another one, and the penalty for the offence is in the instrument being amended.

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
19 November 1992
In force from
1 January 1993
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.

The principal purpose of these Regulations is to implement the amendments made to Council Regulation (EEC)3677/90 (“the Community Regulation”) by Council Regulation (EEC) 900/92. The Community Regulation, as amended, includes provision requiring operators concerned in the export of scheduled substances (substances useful for the manufacture of controlled drugs) to obtain export authorisations in respect of such exports. The Community Regulation, by Article 6, requires Member States to adopt within the framework of their domestic law the measures necessary to enable the competent authorities (in the United Kingdom, this phrase refers to the Secretary of State) to obtain information on any orders for or orders involving scheduled substances and to enter operators' business premises in order to obtain evidence of irregularities. It also requires Member States to determine the penalties to be applied for infringement of the provisions of the Community Regulation. These Regulations amend the Controlled Drugs (Substances Useful for Manufacture) Regulations 1991 (S.I. 1991/1285). They provide that failure to obtain the requisite export authorisation (under Articles 4, 5 and 5a of the Community Regulation) constitutes an offence and set out the penalties applicable to such an offence. They also provide that the power conferred under section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to enter and search premises in order to investigate suspected offences under that Act shall also be exercisable for the purposes of the execution of Articles 4, 5 and 5a of the Community Regulation.

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 0.96.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”; c10_offence_under_parent_act
Confidence
0.96 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