UK Offence Report

Information to be provided before contract is concluded

regulation 7(3) of The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992 (revoked)

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

3 If the intending consumer is not provided with the information required by paragraph (1) in accordance with that paragraph the other party to the contract shall be guilty of an offence and liable:— a on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale; and b on conviction on indictment, to 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Legal burden on the defendant

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 gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

The defence, as drafted

h (1) above committed by the making available of a brochure it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that he is a person whose business it is to publish or arrange for the publication of brochures and that he received the brochure for publication in the ordinary course of business and did not know and had no reason to suspect that its publication would amoun

What would breach regulation 7(3)?

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 Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1992-12-23); 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
22 December 1992
In force from
23 December 1992
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 90/314/EEC on package travel, package holidays, and package tours (OJ No. L158, 13 June 1990, p.59). The Regulations control the sale and performance of packages sold or offered for sale in the UK. Packages are defined as the pre-arranged combination of at least two of the following when sold or offered for sale at an inclusive price and when the service covers a period of 24 hours or more or includes overnight accommodation: transport; accommodation; other tourist services not ancillary to transport or accommodation and accounting for a significant proportion of the package. The Regulations set out what information must be given to the consumer before the contract is concluded (including information to be in brochures, where one is published) and information which must be given to the consumer before the package starts. They lay down terms which must be included in the contract and prescribe the circumstances in which price revisions may be made. They provide that the other party to the contract (ie the organiser and/or retailer, as the case may be) should be strictly liable to the consumer for the proper performance of the obligations under the contract, irrespective of whether such obligations are to be provided by that other party or by other suppliers of services. They also provide that the other party to the contract shall provide sufficient evidence of security for the refund of money paid over and for the repatriation of the consumer in the event of insolvency. The Regulations will be enforced by local weights and measures authorities in Great Britain and by the Department of Economic Development in Northern Ireland.

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 0.92.

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