UK Offence Report

Penalties

regulation 20(2) of The Merchant Shipping (Hours of Work) Regulations 2002

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 Where there is

a contravention of regulation 5(3) or (4) the master of the ship shall be guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction by

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 master
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 master 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

5 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the defendant to show that all reasonable steps had been taken by him to ensure compliance with the Regulations.

What would breach regulation 20(2)?

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 (Hours of Work) Regulations 2002, 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
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (2002-09-07); 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 (Maritime Labour Convention) (Hours of Work) Regulations 2018
Revoked on
6 April 2018
Made
13 August 2002
In force from
7 September 2002
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 implement— the majority of the provisions of Council Directive 1999/63/EC concerning the Agreement on the organisation of working time of seafarers concluded by the European Community Shipowners' Association and the Federation of Transport Workers' Unions in the European Union (OJ L 167, 2.7.99, p.33) and European Parliament and Council Directive 1999/95/EC concerning the enforcement of provisions in respect of seafarers' hours of work on board ships calling at Community ports (OJ L 014, 20.1.2000, p.29). The Regulations: require employers to ensure seafarers have at least the specified minimum hours of rest (regulations 4 to 6 and 8), require records to be kept of seafarers' daily hours of rest, prohibit the employment on a ship of a person under 16 years of age, establish seafarers' entitlement to annual leave, and make provision about the enforcement of the Regulations. The Regulations are made under the powers contained in the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 except in respect of amendments in Schedule 2, where the power is provided by section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. A Regulatory Impact Assessment has been produced and a copy placed in the library of both Houses of Parliament. Copies may be obtained from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Spring Place, 105 Commercial Road, Southampton SO15 1EG (telephone number 023 8032 9380). Merchant Shipping Notices are published by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Copies may be obtained from Mail Marketing (Scotland), Bloomsgrove Industrial Estate, Norton Street, Nottingham NG7 3JG (telephone number 0115 9013336; fax 0115 9013334; e-mail mca@promo-solution.com). International Labour Organization Conventions and Protocols are published by the International Labour Office and copies may be obtained from ILO Publications, International Labour Office, CH-211 Geneva 22, Switzerland. A transposition note has been prepared and copies may be obtained from the Seafarer Health and Safety Branch of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

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”; the provision says the conduct is “punishable”
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