UK Offence Report

Making of false statements etc.

regulation 37(1) of The Railways Infrastructure (Access and Management) Regulations 2005

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 If any person, in giving any information or making any application under or for the purposes of any provision of these Regulations, makes any statement which he knows to be false in a material particular, or recklessly makes any statement which is false in a material particular, he is guilty of an offence and shall be liable— a on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum; b on conviction on indictment, to a fine.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
making a false or misleading statement
Fault element
Requires proof of a state of mind
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (recklessly).

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: recklessly.

What would breach regulation 37(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. Entering a figure on a form or return that is known to be wrong under the Railways Infrastructure (Access and Management) Regulations 2005.
  2. Leaving out something the form asks for, where the omission is what makes the answer misleading.
  3. Producing a document to an official that has been altered since it was issued.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016
Revoked on
29 July 2016
Made
1 November 2005
In force from
28 November 2005
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 Council Directive 91/440/EEC dated 29 July 1991 on the development of the Community’s railways, as amended by Directive 2001/12/EC dated 26 February 2001 and Directive 2004/51/EC dated 29 April 2004, both of the European Parliament and of the Council, and Council Directive 2001/14/EC dated 26 February 2001 on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure, as amended by Directive 2004/49/EC dated 29 April 2004 on safety on the Community’s railways, both of the European Parliament and of the Council. With noted exceptions relating to amendments to primary legislation, these Regulations do not apply to Northern Ireland. Part 1 contains preliminary provisions. Part 2 grants access and transit rights to international groupings and freight operators to the entire rail network in Great Britain, including access to terminals and ports linked to the rail network. It also grants all applicants certain rights of access to, and the supply of, the services listed in Schedule 2 to the Regulations. Part 3 imposes certain separation requirements between the bodies responsible for management of the railway infrastructure (“infrastructure managers”) and railway undertakings. Infrastructure managers are placed under a requirement to produce a network statement containing the information set out in regulation 11. Part 4, together with Schedule 3, sets out the structure for the charging of fees for the use of railway infrastructure, and the charging principles. Part 5, together with Schedule 4, sets out the framework and timetable for the process of allocating infrastructure capacity. The trading of capacity is prohibited, and allocation in the form of fixed train paths cannot be granted for longer than one timetable period. Regulations 23 to 25 set out the procedure that must be followed where an element of the railway infrastructure is congested, and regulation 26 provides a “use it or lose it” provision in respect of allocated capacity. Part 6 allocates certain regulatory functions to the Office of Rail Regulation (“ORR”). Regulation 29 provides a right of appeal to the ORR for applicants aggrieved with various aspects of the allocation of capacity and the fees charged for the use of that capacity, and requires the ORR to make a decision on such appeals within two months. Regulation 30 requires the ORR to monitor competition in the rail services market and to take appropriate action to deal with undesirable developments in the market, either arising out of its own investigations, or from complaints which have been submitted. Regulation 32 provides for the abolition of the International Rail Regulator. Schedule 1 contains consequential amendments and repeals to the Railways Act 1993, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, and other miscellaneous provisions. A Regulatory Impact Assessment has been prepared and copies can be obtained from the Department for Transport, Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DR. A copy has been placed in the Library of each House of Parliament. A copy of the Transposition Note is also available from the Department for Transport. Copies of the Regulatory Impact Assessment and of the Transposition Note may also be accessed on the HMSO website www.opsi.gov.uk.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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