UK Offence Report

Enforcement of maintenance decisions

paragraph 4(9)(a) of SCHEDULE 1 of The Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments (Maintenance) Regulations 2011

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

9 a The debtor under a maintenance decision which is or has been the subject of enforcement proceedings in England and Wales or Northern Ireland by virtue of Section 1 of Chapter IV of the Maintenance Regulation and these Regulations must give notice of any change of address to the designated officer, or in Northern Ireland, the clerk, of the court in which enforcement proceedings have been, or are being, taken. b A person who without reasonable excuse fails to comply with this sub-paragraph shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

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.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

proceedings have been, or are being, taken. b A person who without reasonable excuse fails to comply with this sub-paragraph shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale.

What would breach paragraph 4(9)(a) of SCHEDULE 1?

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 without reasonable excuse fails to comply with this sub-paragraph.
  2. Not doing what the provision requires under the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments (Maintenance) Regulations 2011, 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
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£500
Standard scale
Level 2
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 International Recovery of Maintenance (Hague Convention 2007 etc.) Regulations 2012
Made
13 June 2011
In force from
18 June 2011
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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations make provision to facilitate the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 4/2009 (“the Maintenance Regulation”) in the United Kingdom from the 18th June 2011. Regulation 3 and Schedule 1 make provision for designation of Central Authorities for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and for the enforcement of maintenance decisions made in Member States of the European Union in each part of the United Kingdom in a manner equivalent to maintenance orders made in domestic courts. Part 2 of Schedule 1 applies to orders from Member States which apply the 2007 Hague Protocol on applicable law, and allows for enforcement without prior registration of the order. Part 3 of Schedule 1 applies to orders from Denmark, which does not apply that Protocol (unlike all other Member States except the United Kingdom). Orders from Denmark require registration prior to enforcement. Part 4 of Schedule 1 makes general provision relating to orders from all Member States. Regulation 4 and Schedule 2 make provision for the sharing of information between the designated Central Authorities of the United Kingdom and certain public bodies designated for the purposes of providing that information under Article 61 of the Maintenance Regulation. Article 61 of the Maintenance Regulation requires the disclosure of specific information to Central Authorities for use in the recovery of maintenance in cross border cases within the European Union. Regulation 5 and Schedule 3 make the necessary modifications to Schedule 1 to facilitate the enforcement of authentic instruments and court settlements from other Member States, as required by Article 48 of the Maintenance Regulation. Regulation 6 and Schedule 4 amend the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 as necessary to take account of the application of the Maintenance Regulation in the European Union. Regulation 7 and Schedule 5 amend the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Order 2001 to take account of the application of the Maintenance Regulation, so that the 2001 Order does not apply to maintenance cases to which the Maintenance Regulation applies. Regulation 8 and Schedule 6 make provision for the allocation within the United Kingdom of jurisdiction in maintenance matters. The rules of Schedule 6 adapt the jurisdictional rules of the Maintenance Regulation to apply as between the different territorial units of the United Kingdom. Regulation 9 and Schedule 7 make amendments to legislation consequential upon the application of the Maintenance Regulation in the United Kingdom. In particular, legislation is amended where it provides rules of international jurisdiction which are incompatible with those of the Maintenance Regulation, and where the legislative machinery of enforcement for domestic maintenance orders needs to be adapted to apply to orders to be enforced in the United Kingdom by virtue of the Maintenance Regulation. Provision is also made in relation to the provision of legal aid in Scotland to comply with the legal aid provisions of Chapter V of the Maintenance Regulation (the relevant provision for England and Wales and Northern Ireland is made in separate legislation). Regulation 10 requires the Secretary of State to review the operation and effect of these Regulations in relation to England and Wales only and publish a report within five years after they come into force and within every five years after that. Following a review it will fall to the Secretary of State to consider whether the Regulations should remain as they are, or be revoked or be amended, in their application to England and Wales. A further instrument would be needed to revoke the Regulations or to amend them.

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