UK Offence Report

Offences in relation to provisions of Council Regulation 51/2006

article 8(2) of The Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Annual Community and Third Country Fishing Measures) (England) Order 2006

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 A person is guilty of an offence if he contravenes, or fails to comply with,

a provision of Council Regulation 51/2006 specified in Column

1 of Part

2 of Schedule 2.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 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, a provision of Council Regulation 51/2006 specified in Column 1 of Part 2 of Schedule 2.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Annual Community and Third Country Fishing Measures) (England) Order 2006, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£50,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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 Sea Fishing (Landing and Weighing of Herring, Mackerel and Horse Mackerel) Order 2009 (revoked)
Revoked on
12 August 2009
Made
18 July 2006
In force from
15 August 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 makes provision for the enforcement of certain restrictions and obligations relating to sea fishing by Community vessels and third country vessels which are contained in Council Regulation (EC) No. 51/2006 (OJ No. L16, 20.1.2006, p.1) (“Council Regulation 51/2006”). The Order revokes the Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Quota and Third Country Fishing Measures) (England) Order 2004 (S.I. 2004/1237); see article 20. Subject to certain conditions, Council Regulation 51/2006 fixes total allowable catches and the quotas of Member States for 2006. It also authorises for 2006 fishing by vessels of Norway and the Faroe Islands for specified descriptions of fish in specified areas within the fishery limits of Member States and imposes requirements concerning fishing quotas and authorised zones, methods of fishing, the weighing of fish, the holding of licences and observance of licence conditions, the keeping of log books, the making of reports and similar matters. Article 2 of the Order contains provisions relating to the extent and application of the Order. Article 3 contains interpretation provisions and, in paragraph (5), lists the designated ports for the purposes of point 1.2.1 of Annex III to the Council Regulation 51/2006. Article 4 of the Order makes provision for the purposes of Article 9 of Council Regulation 51/2006 relating to the landing of unsorted catches. Provision is made in article 5 for the approval of pelagic weighing systems by the Secretary of State and it is an offence to fail to comply with such an approval or to interfere with a pelagic weighing system which has been so approved. Articles 6 and 7 make provision for the purposes of Annex III to Council Regulation 51/2006 relating to weighing herring, mackerel and horse mackerel and to illegal fishing in the north-east Atlantic. Article 8 makes it an offence to contravene a number of provisions of Council Regulation 51/2006 which are referred to in Schedules 1, 2 and 3 to the Order. Article 9 specifies the competent authorities for the purposes of Council Regulation 51/2006. The penalties for offences under articles 4 to 8 of the Order are contained in article 10 and in the Schedules. Provisions for the recovery of fines are contained in article 11. Articles 12 to 17 set out the powers of British sea-fishery officers and contain provisions concerned with related matters. Provisions relating to corporate offences and admissibility of evidence are contained in articles 18 and 19. A Regulatory Impact Assessment in relation of this Order has been prepared and placed in the library of each House of Parliament. Copies can be obtained from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Sea Fisheries Conservation Division, Area 6A, 3, Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HH.

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