UK Offence Report

12 It shall be an offence under the Act for any person without legal authority or excuse, proof of which…

article 12 of The Disease Control (Interim Measures) (England) Order 2002

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

12 It shall be an offence under the Act for any person without legal authority or excuse, proof of which shall lie on him, to—

a contravene any provision of this Order or any provision of

a licence, authority, permit or notice issued or served under it; or

b cause or permit any such contravention or non compliance.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 article 12?

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 Disease Control (Interim Measures) (England) Order 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
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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Disease Control (Interim Measures) (England) (No. 2) Order 2002
Revoked on
6 September 2002
Made
7 February 2002
In force from
11 February 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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order, which applies to England only, provides for temporary disease control measures. The Order provides for movement restrictions on animals (articles 3 and 4). In particular, it provides that it shall be unlawful to move any animal unless under the authority of a licence issued by the Minister (article 3(1)(a)) and imposes a 20 day standstill period following the movement of animals on to premises, subject to exemptions for various specified movements (article 3(2) and(3)). The Order also provides for: a animals arriving at slaughterhouses to be slaughtered within 48 hours of arrival (article 4); b a licence regime for sheep shearing and dipping (article 5); c a licence regime for the ultrasound scanning of sheep (article 6); d a permit system for hunting (article 7); e the administrative arrangements in relation to this Order (article 8); f arrangements on change of occupation of premises (article 9); g general provisions in relation to licences (article 10); h powers of the Minister and local authority inspectors (article 11); i offences under the Order (article 12); and j enforcement of the Order (article 13). In addition, the definition of “animals” in the Animal Health Act 1981 is extended for the purposes of the application of that Act to this Order so as to cover elephants (article 14). A regulatory impact assessment has not been prepared for this Order.

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 0.90.

Basis
the provision says “it is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.90 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