UK Offence Report

Amendment of the Water Resources Act 1991

regulation 3(8) of The Water Resources Act 1991 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2009

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

8 For paragraph (c) substitute—

c provide that

a contravention of

a prohibition or restriction contained in the order or of

a condition of

a consent given for the purposes of any such prohibition or restriction or

a failure to comply with

a requirement to take steps contained in the order shall be 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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; other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

What would breach regulation 3(8)?

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. Being served with a notice under the Water Resources Act 1991 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2009 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. 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
25 November 2009
In force from
22 December 2009
Extent
E+W

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 amend the Water Resources Act 1991 (“the Act”) by making some changes to the power to designate Water Protection Zones (“WPZ”) together with the powers to undertake anti-pollution works and serve notices to undertake such works. The purpose being to ensure that England and Wales are able properly to comply with the obligations imposed by Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy. The Regulations amend the Act in the following ways— amending section 93 by— extending controls on activities to include to those which cause harm to controlled waters in addition to activities which risk or cause pollution, and requiring that the Secretary of State in England or the Welsh Ministers in Wales, be satisfied that it is necessary to regulate activities which the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers consider are likely to result in the pollution of, or harm to, controlled waters before making a WPZ order, and revoking section 93(2) to remove the exception in relation to nitrates and revoking sections 94, 95, 96(2) and Schedule 12 in consequence; substituting new sections 161 to 161AB for sections 161 to 161A for the purpose of— extending controls on activities to include those which cause harm to controlled waters, and enabling the Environment Agency to carry out works where the condition of any hydromorphological quality element of any controlled waters is unsatisfactory; making consequential amendments to the Anti-Pollution Works Regulations 1999/1006. A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no impact on the private or voluntary sectors is foreseen.

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 0.88.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.88 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