UK Offence Report

Penalties

regulation 32(1) of The Animals and Animal Products (Import and Export) Regulations 1995

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 A person contravening any provision of these Regulations or any notice served under them shall 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 person
Conduct
breaching the provision
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 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.

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 regulation 32(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. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Animals and Animal Products (Import and Export) Regulations 1995.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
3 months
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1995-10-09); 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 Animals and Animal Products (Import And Export) Regulations 1998
Revoked on
1 March 1998
Made
12 September 1995
In force from
9 October 1995
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 revoke and re-enact with amendments the Animals and Animal Products (Import and Export) Regulations 1993. They take into account changes to Community legislation adopted since those Regulations were made. Amongst other changes Schedule 2 (Border Inspection Posts referred to in Regulation 1(2) and 17(1)) now specifies the categories of animals which are permitted to be imported through the named, authorised Border Inspection Posts. Amendments have been made to Schedule 1 (Regulation 1(2)), Schedule 3 (Regulations 4, 5(1), 6, 10, 12(4)(a), 29(2)(b) and 33), and Schedule 5 (Regulations 16(2) and (3), 18(2) and 33) in accordance with the European Economic Area Agreement and the Act concerning the conditions of accession of the Kingdom of Norway, the Republic of Austria, the Republic of Finland and the Kingdom of Sweden. A Compliance Cost Assessment for these Regulations has been prepared and placed in the library of each House of Parliament. Copies can be obtained from the Animal Health (International Trade) Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Government Buildings, Hook Rise South, Tolworth, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 7NF.

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