UK Offence Report

The Merchant Shipping (Safe Manning, Hours of Work and Watchkeeping) Regulations 1997 shall be amended as…

regulation 3 of The Merchant Shipping (Training, Certification and Safe Manning) (Amendment) Regulations 1997

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

3 The Merchant Shipping (Safe Manning, Hours of Work and Watchkeeping) Regulations 1997 shall be amended as follows—

a in regulation 2(1), after the definition of “hazardous cargo” the following definition shall be inserted: “length” has the same meaning as in the Merchant Shipping (Tonnage) Regulations 1997 ;

b at the end of regulation 3(b)(ii), there shall be added “and which are less than

80 GT or under

24 metres in length”;

c in regulation 16(1)(b)(ii), for the first reference to “15(2)” there shall be substituted “15(3)”;

d in regulation 17—

i in paragraph (1), for “9(1), (2), (8) or (10)” there shall be substituted “9”;

ii in paragraph (2), for “4(b)” there shall be substituted “4(6)”; and

iii after paragraph (2), there shall be inserted the following paragraph:— 2A Where an employer has pursuant to regulation 9(3) become subject to the duties of the company under that regulation, any contravention of regulation

9 by the employer shall be an offence, punishable on summary conviction by

a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or on indictment by

a fine, or (in the case of an individual) by imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both. .

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

  1. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Merchant Shipping (Training, Certification and Safe Manning) (Amendment) Regulations 1997, 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
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

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
31 July 1997
In force from
1 September 1997
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.

These Regulations correct deficiencies in the Merchant Shipping (Training and Certification) Regulations 1997 and the Merchant Shipping (Safe Manning, Hours of Work and Watchkeeping) Regulations 1997, which implemented the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW), 1978, as amended on 7th July 1995. They apply those Regulations to pleasure vessels which are over 24 metres and 80 gross tons in size. In the Merchant Shipping (Training and Certification) Regulations 1997 the maximum length of adaptation periods (for assessing the competency of applicants for certificates of equivalent competency who are nationals of member States of the European Economic Area) is specified as three years (pursuant to Council Directive 89/48/EEC (OJ. No. L19, 24.1.89, p.16) on a general system of the recognition of higher education diplomas awarded on completion of professional education and training of at least three years' duration; and to Council Directive 92/51/EEC (OJ. No. L209, 24.7.92, p.25) on a second general system for the recognition of professional education and training to supplement Directive 89/48/EC). In the Merchant Shipping (Safe Manning, Hours of Work and Watchkeeping) Regulations 1997 certain other amendments are made. In particular an offence and penalty is prescribed for employers who become subject to the duty under regulation 9 to produce schedules of work, but contravene that duty.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same 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 0.88.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens; the provision says the conduct is “punishable”
Confidence
0.88 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