UK Offence Report

Enforcement of maintenance order registered in United Kingdom court.

paragraph 8(3) of SCHEDULE 2 of The Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (Republic of Ireland) Order 1993

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 Any person for the time being under an obligation to make payments in pursuance of

a registered order shall give notice of any change of address to the clerk of the registering court, and any person failing without reasonable excuse to give such

a notice shall be liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

2 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

the clerk of the registering court, and any person failing without reasonable excuse to give such a notice shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale.

What would breach paragraph 8(3) of SCHEDULE 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 what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (Republic of Ireland) Order 1993.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£500
Standard scale
Level 2
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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 Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments (Maintenance) Regulations 2011
Revoked on
18 June 2011
Made
10 March 1993
In force from
5 April 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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order applies the provisions of Part I of the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972, as amended, to the Republic of Ireland subject to the exceptions, adaptations and modifications set out in Schedule 1. Schedule 2 sets out Part I as so applied. This Order replaces and revokes an earlier order to similar effect (the Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (Republic of Ireland) Order 1974). The principal modifications effected by Schedule 1 are as follows:— in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, a provisional maintenance order may be confirmed by the court which made it and does not require confirmation by a court in the Republic of Ireland (paragraph 3); in Scotland, all maintenance orders sent for enforcement in the Republic of Ireland are orders which require no confirmation by any court (paragraph 4); a maintenance order made by a court in the Republic of Ireland may not be varied or revoked by a court in the United Kingdom and only a United Kingdom court may vary or revoke a maintenance order made in the United Kingdom (paragraphs 5 and 9); registration of a maintenance order made in the Republic of Ireland may be refused on certain grounds and all orders which are registered are orders which require no confirmation (paragraphs 6 and 7); references to the basis for jurisdiction relating to the presence of “assets” within the jurisdiction (brought in by the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982) (as an alternative to residence) are omitted (paragraphs 2, 6 and 10). This Order comes into force on 5th April 1993.

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 0.72.

Basis
the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
Confidence
0.72 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