UK Offence Report

Compliance with notices

regulation 8(2) of The Older Cattle (Disposal) (England) Regulations 2005 (revoked)

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

2 Any person on whom

a notice is served who contravenes or fails to comply with the provisions of that notice is guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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 8(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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes or fails to comply with the provisions of that notice.
  2. Being served with a notice under the Older Cattle (Disposal) (England) Regulations 2005 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
3 months
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
22 December 2005
In force from
23 January 2006
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 make provision for the enforcement of certain of the requirements of Commission Regulation (EC) No 716/96, adopting exceptional support measures for the beef market in the United Kingdom (as last amended by Commission Regulation (EC) No. 2109/2005 of 22 December 2005, OJ No. L337, 22.12.05, p. 25). The Commission Regulation introduced a scheme authorising the United Kingdom to purchase any bovine animal born or reared within the United Kingdom before 1 August 1996 which does not exhibit any clinical sign of BSE and which was, during a period of at least six months prior to its sale, present on a holding located in United Kingdom territory. Various requirements are specified as to the slaughter, treatment and disposal of animals subject to the scheme. Regulation 3 creates offences in respect of breaches of the provisions of the Commission Regulation referred to in Column 1 (and described in Column 2) of the Schedule to the Regulations. Regulation 4 provides that these Regulations are to be enforced by the Secretary of State, who shall appoint inspectors for this purpose. Regulations 5 to 8 detail the powers of those inspectors, and the consequences of failure to comply with, or of obstructing, the inspectors. Under regulation 9, breach of the Regulations is an offence punishable on summary conviction to a fine up to the statutory maximum, currently £5,000, or three months imprisonment. On indictment the penalty is an unlimited fine or two years imprisonment. A full regulatory impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as it has no impact on the costs of business.

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”
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