UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 16(1) of The Sheep Annual Premium and Suckler Cow Premium Quotas Regulations 1993

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 Any person who fails without reasonable excuse to comply with a requirement imposed on him by regulation 5(1), 6(2) or 8(2) or (3) or by or under the Community legislation shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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

1 Any person who fails without reasonable excuse to comply with a requirement imposed on him by regulation 5(1), 6(2) or 8(2) or (3) or by or under the Community legislation shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or, on conviction on in

What would breach regulation 16(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 a person fails without reasonable excuse to comply with a requirement imposed on him by regulation 5(1), 6(2) or 8(2) or (3) or by or under the Community legislation.
  2. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Sheep Annual Premium and Suckler Cow Premium Quotas Regulations 1993.

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 (1993-07-01); 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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Sheep Annual Premium and Suckler Cow Premium Quotas Regulations 1997
Revoked on
31 December 1997
Made
25 June 1993
In force from
1 July 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

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations, which apply throughout the United Kingdom, come into force on 1st July 1993.They make provision for the implementation in part of Articles 5a and 5b of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3013/89 and Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3567/92 (both defined in regulation 2(1)), which establish a system of quotas for sheep annual premium, and Articles 4d to 4h of Council Regulation (EEC) No 805/68 and Articles 22 to 45 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3886/92 (both defined in regulation 2(1)), which establish a system of quotas for suckler cow premium. The Regulations— a specify reference years for determining quotas (regulation 4); b lay down supplementary rules for notifying transfers and leases of quota (regulation 5); c specify the proportion of quota that is surrendered to the national reserve on a transfer of quota without a holding (regulation 6(1)); d specify a minimum level of suckler cow premium quota that small producers may transfer without a holding or that they may lease to other producers (regulation 6(2)); e lay down additional notification rules for transfers of quota with holdings (regulation 7); f prohibit quota from being transferred between sensitive zones in most circumstances (regulations 8 and 9); g relax the time restrictions on leasing for producers participating in recognised environmental programmes (regulation 10); h provide for the initial stocking of the national reserves of quota (regulation 11); i provide for the distribution of quota in the national reserves into divisions corresponding to the sensitive zones (regulations 12 and 13); j establish a quota register and provide for the supply of copies of register entries in specified circumstances (regulations 14 and 15); and k create offences and penalties (regulation 16).

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