UK Offence Report

Powers of participating authorities

regulation 3(3) of The Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) Regulations 1997

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 Any person who fails to comply with

a requirement under paragraph (2) shall be guilty of an offence and be liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

5 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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 3(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. On these words an offence is committed where a person fails to comply with a requirement under paragraph (2).
  2. Being served with a notice under the Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) Regulations 1997 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

level 5 is unlimited in England and Wales for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015 (LASPO 2012 s.85, S.I. 2015/664).

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 Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) (Wales) Regulations 2003
Revoked on
1 May 2003
Made
19 December 1997
In force from
Not determined
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 make provision for specified local authorities to issue fixed penalty notices to users of vehicles within their area who contravene, or fail to comply with, regulation 61 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and to drivers of vehicles within their area who contravene, or fail to comply with, regulation 98 of those Regulations. Regulation 61 makes provision concerning the emission of smoke and other substances from vehicles and regulation 98 makes provision for the stopping of the engine of a stationary vehicle to avoid noise and exhaust emissions. A fixed penalty notice is a notice which enables a person who has committed an offence to discharge any liability to conviction on payment of a fixed penalty of £60 in the case of a contravention of regulation 61 and £20 in the case of a contravention of regulation 98. The Regulations make provision for a request to be made for a hearing in respect of the offence and for the increase in the amount of the fixed penalty if it remains unpaid at the end of the period of 28 days after the offence without a request for a hearing having been made. A compliance cost assessment has been prepared and copies can be obtained from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Zone 2/05, Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DR (telephone 0171-271 4653). Copies have been placed in the libraries of each House of Parliament.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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