UK Offence Report

Offences by body corporate and partnerships

regulation 8(3) of The Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Manual Handling Operations) Regulations 1998

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 Where an offence under any of these Regulations committed by

a Scottish partnership is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of,

a partner, he as well as the partnership is guilty of an offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 8(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 what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Manual Handling Operations) Regulations 1998.

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.

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
10 November 1998
In force from
31 December 1998
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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations, which repeal the provisions in the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 and the Children and Young Persons Act (Northern Ireland) 1968 which restrict the manual handling of loads by children, give effect as regards shipping activities in the United Kingdom to Council Directive 90/269/EEC on the minimum health and safety requirements for the manual handling where there is a risk particularly of back injury to the workers (O.J. L156, 21.6.90, p.9). The Regulations apply to all United Kingdom ships, other than public service vessels or vessels engaged in search and rescue (regulation 3(1)). Ships which are not United Kingdom ships but are in United Kingdom waters are subject to the regulations covering inspection and detention (regulations 3(2) and 10–13). The Regulations do not apply if the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (S.I. 1992/2793) or the Manual Handling Operations Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1992 (S.R. 1992/535) cover the matter (regulation 3(3)). An obligation is placed on the employer to avoid, so far as is reasonably practicable, the need for any manual handling of a load which would involve a health and safety risk to the worker (regulation 5(1)) but if avoidance is not reasonably practicable the employer shall carry out an assessment having regard to specified factors and consider specified questions in relation to those factors (regulation 5(2)(a) and the Schedule), take appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury to workers to the lowest level that is reasonably practicable (regulation 5(2)(b)), take steps to provide the worker with precise information on the weight and centre of gravity where it is practicable to so (regulation 5(2)(c)), and provide workers who will be involved in a manual handling operation with proper training and information (regulation 5(2)(d)). The obligation placed on the employer can be extended to another person if the employer is not in control of the matter because he does not have responsibility for the operation of the ship (regulation 4). An obligation is placed on the worker to make full use of any system of work provided by the employer to reduce the risk to the lowest level that is reasonably practicable (regulation 6). The Regulations make contravention of the requirement on the employer (or, if appropriate, another person in control of the matter) an offence with a maximum penalty of £5,000 (regulation 7(1)), and contravention of the requirement on the worker an offence with a maximum penalty of £500 (regulation 7(2)). Provision is made for offences by a corporate body or a Scottish partnership (regulation 8) and the burden of showing that failure to comply with a duty in these Regulations was not reasonably practicable is on the defendant (regulation 9). Inspection and detention of United Kingdom and non-United Kingdom ships are separately provided for (regulations 10 and 11) and sections in the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 dealing with arbitration and compensation are applied (regulation 13). These Regulations are made under powers contained in the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 except in respect of their application to government ships (regulation 2(2)) and in respect of the revocations (regulation 1(2)).

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 0.92.

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