2 Where there is, in respect of any Community fishing boat or any Islands fishing boat, which is within…

article 3(2) of The Fishing Boats (Marking and Documentation) (Enforcement) Order 1993

• Status not determined
• Strict liability
• Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheries

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

2 Where there is, in respect of any Community fishing boat or any Islands fishing boat, which is within British fishery limits,

a contravention of, or failure to comply with, any provision of article 1,

2 or 3(1) to (4) of the Commission Regulation, the master, owner, charterer (if any) and any other person responsible for the vessel, shall each be guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

contravening a requirement of the instrument

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 article 3(2)?

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 the thing the provision prohibits under the Fishing Boats (Marking and Documentation) (Enforcement) Order 1993, whatever the reason for doing it.
2. 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

Status not determined

Made

10 August 1993

In force from

1 September 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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order makes breaches of specified articles of Commission Regulation (EEC) No. 1381/87 (establishing detailed rules concerning the marking and documentation of fishing vessels) offences for the purposes of United Kingdom law wherever they occur in respect of any British fishing boat and within British fishery limits in respect of any Community fishing boat or Islands fishing boat. The Commission Regulation requires— 1 fishing vessels to be marked with the port or district in which it is registered (article 1 of the Regulation); 2 small boats carried on fishing vessels and marker buoys to be marked with the letter and number of the vessel to which they belong (article 2 of the Regulation); 3 vessels over 10 metres in length to carry on board specified documents (article 3(1) of the Regulation); and 4 vessels over 17 metres in length to keep on board certified drawings or descriptions of fish rooms and documents indicating calibration of sea-water tanks (article 3(2) of the Regulation). On summary conviction the offender will be liable to a fine not exceeding the amount specified in relation to the offence in column 3 of the Schedule to the Order (currently the statutory maximum is £5,000) and, on conviction on indictment, to a fine (article 4 of the Order). There is provision for a defence of due diligence (article 5). The Order provides powers for the recovery of fines imposed by a magistrates' court in England and Wales or Northern Ireland, or in Scotland by the sheriff (article 6). The Order confers powers of enforcement on British sea-fishery officers (article 7). Provision is made for the punishment of anyone found guilty of obstructing a British sea-fishery officer (article 8).

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

• Where there is, in respect of any British fishing boat wherever it may be, a contravention of, or failure to…article 3(1)
• Obstruction of officersarticle 8
• Obstruction of officersarticle 8(c)

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 Fishing Boats (Marking and Documentation) (Enforcement) Order 1993 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
• Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheriesOther offences on the same subject
• Offences created in 1993