UK Offence Report

Use of a vehicle in Great Britain without a control document

regulation 4(1) of The Road Transport (Passenger Vehicles Cabotage) Regulations 1999

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

1 A person commits an offence if he uses

a vehicle on

a road, or causes or permits

a vehicle to be so used, for the purposes of UK cabotage operations which—

a take the form of occasional services in Great Britain or between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and

b are carried out in contravention of Article 6(1) of the Council Regulation.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 4(1)?

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 Road Transport (Passenger Vehicles Cabotage) 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
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£2,500
Standard scale
Level 4
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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
20 December 1999
In force from
28 January 2000
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 implement in Great Britain Council Regulation (EC) No. 12/98 of 11 December 1997 (“the EC Regulation”) which lays down the conditions under which road passenger transport carriers of member States may operate cabotage transport operations. The EC Regulation permits the operation of transport services for hire or reward in another member State without having a registered office or being established in that State by operators who hold a Community licence issued under Council Regulation 684/92 of 16 March 1992 (Article 1). The EC Regulation requires that the Community licence, or a certified copy, shall be carried on board the vehicle and produced when requested by an authorised inspecting officer (Article 5). These Regulations implement those requirements by making it a criminal offence to— i carry out a cabotage transport operation without a Community licence (punishable with a maximum fine a level 4, currently £2500) (regulation 3), and ii fail without reasonable cause to produce the Community licence or a certified copy (punishable with a maximum fine at level 3, currently £1000) (regulation 7). The EC Regulation requires that cabotage transport operations which are “occasional services” as defined in Article 2 of the EC Regulation shall be carried out under the cover of a control document, which must be kept on board the vehicle and produced when requested by an authorised inspecting officer (Article 6). These Regulations implement those requirements by making it a criminal offence to— i use the vehicle in contravention of the requirement (punishable with a maximum fine at level 4, currently £2500) (regulation 4), and ii fail without reasonable cause to produce the control document (punishable with a maximum fine at level 3, currently £1000) (regulation 7). These Regulations provide that— i in the case of carriers established in the UK the traffic commissioner in the area where the carrier has his operating centre shall be the competent authority to impose an administrative penalty (regulation 5(1)), with a right of appeal to the Transport Tribunal (regulation 6(2)), ii in the case of carriers not established in the UK the Secretary of State shall be the competent authority to impose an administrative penalty (regulation 5(2)), with a right to have his decision reviewed (regulation 6(1)), and iii the Secretary of State is the competent authority to communicate with the Commission in accordance with articles 7 and 9 (regulation 5(2)). The Regulations additionally provide for— i police constables and traffic examiners to be authorised inspecting officers (regulation 8); ii criminal offences in certain circumstances to be committed by a director, manager, secretary or similar officer of a body corporate (regulation 9). The Regulations make consequential amendments to various enactments including modifying the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act 1972 to provide power in certain cases for the driving of a foreign vehicle engaged in cabotage to be prohibited (regulation 10).

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 “commits 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