UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Coal Mines (Owner’s Operating Rules) Regulations 1993

the instrument as a whole of The Coal Mines (Owner’s Operating Rules) Regulations 1993

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

Contravening this instrument is an offence under section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

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.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

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 Coal Mines (Owner’s Operating Rules) Regulations 1993.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

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
27 September 1993
In force from
1 January 1994
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 are applied to coal mines by regulation 2. By regulation 3, the owner of a mine is prohibited from working the mine unless there are in force suitable written rules made by the owner (“owner;s operating rules”). The owner is required to notify the rules to the Health and Safety Executive. The owner is also required to ensure that the rules are brought to the attention of persons at work at the mine whom they affect and that operations at the mine are carried out in accordance with them. The Health and Safety Executive is also empowered by that regulation to require the owner to modify any of the owner’s operating rules made by him in the interests of health or safety at the mine. Under regulation 4, the topics covered by the rules are set out in the Schedule and are— ventilation of blind ends; mine fires; and frictional ignition. By regulation 5, copies of the owner’s operating rules are required to be kept and made available at the covered accomodation at the mine, and regulation 6 provides a defence in a case where the owner has failed to modify the rules when required to do so by the Health and Safety Executive. Section 157 of the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 (which provides a defence in legal proceedings and prosecutions in certain circumstances) is disapplied in relation to these Regulations by regulation 7.

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 0.63.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.63 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