UK Offence Report

6 It is an offence to breach a notice served under this regulation or fail to comply with it.

regulation 18(6) of The Private Water Supplies Regulations 2009 (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

6 It is an offence to breach

a notice served under this regulation or fail to comply with it.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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 18(6)?

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 it is an offence to breach a notice served under this regulation or fail to comply with it.
  2. Not doing what the provision requires under the Private Water Supplies Regulations 2009, 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)
Not determined
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
24 November 2009
In force from
1 January 2010
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, which apply in England, implement Council Directive 98/83/EC (on the quality of water intended for human consumption, OJ No L 330, 5.12.1998, p 32) in relation to private water supplies. They revoke and replace the Private Water Supply Regulations 1991 in England. The principal changes are that the Regulations impose on local authorities a duty to carry out a risk assessment of the private water supplies and they make it an offence to breach a notice served by the local authority under regulation 18. The Regulations establish an appeal process for any person aggrieved by such notice. They apply to private water supplies other than those provided by a water undertaker or a licensed water supplier. They define “wholesomeness” in regulation 4 and Schedule 1, and impose a duty on the local authority to carry out a risk assessment of the private water supply (regulation 6) and to monitor the supply (regulations 7 to 10 and Schedule 2). Once monitored, the local authority must ensure that the sample is analysed in the ways set out in the Schedule 3. The local authority must make and maintain records (regulation 12 and Schedule 4), and must send a copy of the records to the Secretary of State in accordance with regulation 13. Part 3 of the Regulations sets out procedures if the private water supply is not wholesome. Schedule 5 sets out the fees payable under the Regulations. A full impact assessment has been prepared for these Regulations, and laid in the library of each House of Parliament. It is available on the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk.

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