What would breach article 3 of The Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1996?

Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1996, whatever the reason for doing it. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

3 Where there is, in respect of any fishing boat to which a relevant Community provision applies, a…

Q: Is article 3 of The Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1996 a strict liability offence?

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.

article 3 of The Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1996

Revoked
Strict liability
Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheries

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 Where there is, in respect of any fishing boat to which
a relevant Community provision applies,
a contravention of, or failure to comply with, that provision within British fishery limits, the master, the owner and the charterer (if any) of that boat 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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?

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.

Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1996, whatever the reason for doing it.
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: Revoked
Revoked by: The Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1997
Revoked on: 9 April 1997
Made: 3 April 1996
In force from: 24 April 1996
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 Order, which replaces and revokes the Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1995, as amended by the Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) (Amendment) Order 1995, provides for the enforcement of Community Regulations which authorise fishing in certain specified areas within member States' fishery limits for specified descriptions of fish by vessels of third countries, namely Norway and the Faroe Islands, in 1996. These Regulations contain requirements concerning fishing quotas and authorised zones, methods of fishing, the holding of licences and observance of licence conditions, the keeping of log books, the making of radio reports and similar matters. The Order makes breaches of specified articles of the Community Regulations (set out in column 1 of the Schedule to the Order) offences for the purposes of United Kingdom law where they occur within British fishery limits (article 3 and the Schedule to the Order). The offences created by the Order are triable summarily or on indictment. On conviction on indictment, the master, owner and charterer (if any) of an offending vessel will be liable to an unlimited fine. On summary conviction, the master, owner and charterer (if any) will be liable to a fine not exceeding the amount specified in relation to the offence in column 4 of the Schedule (see article 4(1)). The level of the maximum summary fine in respect of offences relating to fishing without or in excess of quota, or in unauthorised waters, methods of fishing, the keeping of logbooks and the observance of licence conditions is £50,000. The level of the maximum summary fine for all the other offences specified in the Schedule is the statutory maximum penalty (which is currently £5,000). In certain cases the master, owner and charterer (if any) of an offending vessel will also be liable to the forfeiture of any fish in respect of which the offence was committed (or, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the value of the fish) and to the forfeiture of nets or other fishing gear (article 4(2) to (4)). Additionally the Order— a contains provision concerning the recovery of fines (article 5), b confers powers of enforcement on British sea-fishery officers (articles 6 to 8), including provision for their protection (article 9), c provides for the punishment of anyone found guilty of obstructing or assaulting an officer (article 10), and d makes provision for the trial of offences (article 11) and the admissibility of logbooks and other documents (article 12).

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

Obstruction of officersarticle 10

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 Third Country Fishing (Enforcement) Order 1996 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheriesOther offences on the same subject
Offences created in 1996