UK Offence Report

1 A person who contravenes a provision of these Regulations shall be guilty of an offence and liable on…

regulation 19(1) of The Merchant Shipping (Diving Safety) Regulations 2002

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 who contravenes

a provision of these Regulations shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to

a time not exceeding the statutory maximum or on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for

a term not exceeding

2 years, or

a fine, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
a person
Conduct
contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Legal burden on the defendant

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 gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

The defence, as drafted

ged with an offence under these Regulations to show that he took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence.

What would breach regulation 19(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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes a provision of these Regulations.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Merchant Shipping (Diving Safety) Regulations 2002, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. 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
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

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
13 June 2002
In force from
1 September 2002
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 revoke and replace, with modifications, the Merchant Shipping (Diving Operations) Regulations 1975 (S.I. 1975/116) and the Merchant Shipping (Diving Operations) (Amendment) Regulations 1975 (S.I. 1975/2062). These Regulations apply to diving within UK territorial waters in the circumstances set out in regulation 3(1) and (3) of the Regulations: diving projects falling within these circumstances will usually be those which involve recreational divers who use a vessel or other floating structure to carry out the dive. Regulation 3(2) also applies the Regulations to diving from United Kingdom ships which takes place outside UK territorial waters and the UK continental shelf, and to diving operations within the UK continental shelf other than those relating to offshore installations or pipelines: both commercial and recreational diving projects may fall within regulation 3(2). The Regulations place duties on the owner and master of a craft (as defined in the Regulations) from which certain diving projects are undertaken, on the diving contractor or diving supervisor for such a diving project, and on the persons diving in such projects; certain powers are also conferred on masters and diving supervisors. They make provision for the Secretary of State to grant exemptions, for transitional provisions, inquiries and investigations into accidents, and create criminal offences for contravention of the Regulations. A regulatory impact assessment has been produced and a copy laid in the library of each House of Parliament. Copies may be obtained from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Spring Place, 105 Commercial Road, Southampton, SO1 1EG (telephone 023 8032 9478 (direct) or 023 8032 9100 (switchboard). Merchant Shipping Notices can be obtained from Marl Marketing (Scotland), Unit 6, Bloomsgrove Industrial Estate, Norton Street, Nottingham NG7 3JG, and are also available on the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s website at www.mcga.gov.uk.

Read the full note and every offence in this 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