UK Offence Report

Penalties

regulation 14(3) of The Merchant Shipping (Accident Reporting and Investigation) Regulations 1999

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 If any person without reasonable cause discloses or permits to be disclosed information in contravention of regulations 9(1) and 10(6), he shall be guilty of an offence and 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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 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 14(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 (Accident Reporting and Investigation) Regulations 1999, 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
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1999-10-12); 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 Merchant Shipping (Accident Reporting and Investigation) Regulations 2005
Revoked on
18 April 2005
Made
13 September 1999
In force from
12 October 1999
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 replace the Merchant Shipping (Accident Investigation) Regulations 1994. The main changes are: A new, broader, definition of “accident” which includes some of those events previously known as “dangerous occurrences”, has been introduced. (Regulation 2(1)) The definitions of “dangerous occurrence”, “strands” and “ serious casualty” have been removed. “Serious injury” has been redefined and no longer applies only to people employed or carried in a United Kingdom ship. (Regulation 2(2)) Various regulations have been updated with reference to modern methods of communication, and accordingly statutory accident reporting times have been reduced. A regulation regarding the disclosure of records has been included. Declarations and other records used in accident investigation will only be disclosed if a court so orders, or if a declarant gives written permission. (Regulation 9) The concept of an “Inspector’s Inquiry” and the reference to summary reports have been removed. Instead all reports of investigations will be made publicly available in such a manner as the Chief Inspector sees fit, subject to certain safeguards with respect to national security. (Regulation 10) The consultation with those whose reputation is likely to be affected by a report of an investigation, before it is made publicly available, has been reduced to one period of 28 days. (Regulation 10(5)) The Chief Inspector’s discretion whether or not to comply in serving a notice on a person likely to be adversely affected by a report, when a coroner’s inquest or fatal accident inquiry has been held, has been removed from the Regulations. It will be an offence for any person to falsely claim to have additional information or new evidence pertaining to an accident. (Regulation 14(1)(c))

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