What would breach regulation 20(3) of The Fish Health Regulations 1992?

Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Fish Health Regulations 1992, whatever the reason for doing it. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

3 A person shall be guilty of an offence who, without reasonable excuse, proof of which shall lie on him,…

Q: Is regulation 20(3) of The Fish Health Regulations 1992 a strict liability offence?

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.

regulation 20(3) of The Fish Health Regulations 1992

Revoked
Strict liability
Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheries

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 A person shall be guilty of an offence who, without reasonable excuse, proof of which shall lie on him, contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of this regulation.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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: An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

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.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

3 A person shall be guilty of an offence who, without reasonable excuse, proof of which shall lie on him, contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of this regulation.

What would breach regulation 20(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.

Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Fish Health Regulations 1992, whatever the reason for doing it.
Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

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

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

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.

Sentencing organisations: fines and the means of a corporate defendant All courts in England and Wales
How a fine on a company is arrived at from its turnover. Relevant far beyond the guidelines that state it, because a very large share of the offences in this corpus can only be committed by an organisation.
Environmental offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 July 2014
Covers unauthorised or harmful deposit, treatment or disposal of waste, illegal discharges to air, land and water, and the equivalent offences committed by organisations. It is the guideline that introduced turnover bands for corporate fines, so the size of the defendant company is a starting point rather than a mitigating detail.
Health and safety offences, corporate manslaughter and food safety and hygiene offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 February 2016
Covers breaches of duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the regulations made under it, and food safety and food hygiene offences. Sentencing turns on culpability and on the seriousness and likelihood of harm risked, not only on the harm that happened.
Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017
The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.
General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019
The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.
Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

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 Fish Health Regulations 1997
Revoked on: 21 August 1997
Made: 23 December 1992
In force from: 1 January 1993
Extent: Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

These Regulations, which apply to Great Britain, implement Council Directive 91/67/EEC (OJ No. L46, 19.2.91, p. 1) (“the Directive”) concerning the animal health conditions governing the placing on the market of aquaculture animals and products, to the extent that it is not implemented by existing legislation. The Regulations— a prohibit the placing on the market of aquaculture animals and products unless certain requirements relating to their health status are met (regulation 3); b prohibit the transport of aquaculture animals unless certain requirements relating to the welfare of the aquaculture animals and the prevention of the spread of disease are met (regulation 4); c prohibit the despatch of aquaculture animals and products unless requirements as to identification of the aquaculture animals and products are met (regulation 5); d contain certain requirements concerning movement documents for aquaculture animals and products (regulation 6); e prohibit the introduction into Great Britain from elsewhere in the European Economic Community of live fish, eggs and gametes (regulation 7) and live molluscs, eggs and gametes (regulation 9) unless they are accompanied by appropriate movement documents; f prohibit the introduction into Great Britain from elsewhere in the European Economic Community of certain dead fish which have not been eviscerated unless they come from areas of appropriate fish health status (regulation 8); g regulate the relaying within Great Britain of live molluscs, eggs and gametes from certain areas within Great Britain (regulation 9); h prohibit the export to other parts of the European Economic Community of aqua-culture animals and products from Great Britain unless they are accompanied by appropriate movement documents where required pursuant to the Directive (regulation 10); i require the notification of certain diseases (regulation 11); j provide the Minister with powers to impose movement restrictions and to require slaughter and disinfection in connection with certain diseases (regulations 12 and 13); k set out the arrangements regarding, and provide powers for, the enforcement of these Regulations (regulations 14 to 17); l provide European Inspectors with certain powers to establish whether the Directive is applied uniformly (regulation 18); m provide that further persons may be deemed to be guilty of an offence when an offence is committed by a body corporate or a Scottish partnership (regulation 19); n provide that the contravention of, or failure to comply with a provision of the Regulations shall be an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale except for an offence under regulation 11(1) which shall be punishable by a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale (regulations 20 and 21). Movement documents Form E and Form F (regulation 2) are set out in Commission Decision No. C(92) 3064 of 11 December 1992 laying down the model of the movement documents referred to in Article 14 of Council Directive 91/67/EEC. Copies of the Decision are available from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR, the Scottish Office Agriculture and Fisheries Department, Pentland House, 47 Robb’s Loan, Edinburgh EH14 1TW and the Welsh Office Agriculture Department, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF1 3NQ.

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

This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
The Fish Health Regulations 1992 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheriesOther offences on the same subject
Offences created in 1992