UK Offence Report

Directions for freezing of funds, financial assets or economic resources

article 4(10) of The Belarus (Restrictive Measures) (Overseas Territories) Order 2006

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

10 A recipient who fails to comply with such

a requirement as is mentioned in paragraph (5) is guilty of an offence under this Order.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 do something the instrument requires
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; other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

The defence, as drafted

that in any proceedings for an offence under this article, it is a defence for a person to show that he did not know and had no reasonable cause to suspect, as the case may be, that he was dealing with funds, financial assets or economic resources owned, held or controlled by a listed person, or that he was making funds, financial assets or economic res

What would breach article 4(10)?

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 fails to comply with such a requirement as is mentioned in paragraph (5).
  2. Not doing what the provision requires under the Belarus (Restrictive Measures) (Overseas Territories) Order 2006, by the time it requires it to be done.
  3. Doing it, but not in the manner or to the standard the instrument specifies.

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

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 Belarus (Restrictive Measures) (Overseas Territories) Order 2011 (revoked)
Revoked on
14 October 2011
Made
19 July 2006
In force from
21 July 2006
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 applies to each of the British overseas territories listed in Schedule 1. It imposes restrictive measures in respect of members of the leadership and certain officials of Belarus responsible for violations of electoral standards and the crackdown on civil society and democratic opposition in Belarus. These measures prohibit making available funds, financial assets or economic resources to listed persons and the freezing of their funds, financial assets or economic resources. The Order gives effect to measures adopted by the European Union in Council Common Position 2006/276/CFSP as amended by Council Common Position 2006/362/CFSP, which were given effect in the European Union by Council Regulation (EC) No 765/2006.

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