UK Offence Report

Application to punish for contempt of court

paragraph 47.9 of SCHEDULE of The Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2016

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

Under section 342 of the Act and under article

5 of the Order, subject to the exceptions for which those provide it is an offence to make

a disclosure likely to prejudice an investigation or to interfere with documents relevant to 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching the provision
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 paragraph 47.9 of SCHEDULE?

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 make a disclosure likely to prejudice an investigation or to interfere with documents relevant to it.
  2. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2016.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated here: this instrument amends another one, and the penalty for the offence is in the instrument being amended.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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
27 January 2016
In force from
4 April 2016
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 Rules) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Rules make the following amendments to the Criminal Procedure Rules 2015, S.I. 2015/1490: Rule Amendment Part 2 In rule 2.2 the definition of ‘live link’ is amended. Part 3 Rule 3.24 is amended to set the time limits within which a trial in the Crown Court must begin, in exercise of the power conferred on the Criminal Procedure Rules by section 77 of the Senior Courts Act 1981. Part 4 Rules 4.3 and 4.4 are amended to provide for service on the court officer of an application to a High Court judge for permission to serve a draft indictment. Part 10 Rule 10.3 is added to supply the procedure on an application to a High Court judge for permission to serve a draft indictment, in exercise of the power conferred on the Criminal Procedure Rules by section 2(6) of the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1933, as amended by section 82 of the Deregulation Act 2015. Part 17 Rules 17.3 and 17.5 are amended to clarify the procedure on an application to the court for an order under section 7 of the Bankers’ Books Evidence Act 1879. Part 21 Rule 21.4 is amended to require a defendant (i) to give notice of the introduction of evidence of his or her own bad character, and (ii) in the Crown Court, at the same time to give notice of any requested direction to the jury about the significance of that evidence. Part 24 Rule 24.3 is amended to provide for the identification of issues by the defendant at the beginning of trial in a magistrates’ court. Part 25 Rule 25.9 is amended to provide for the identification of issues by the defendant at the beginning of trial in the Crown Court. Rule 25.12 is amended to clarify the circumstances in which written witness statements must be read aloud in the Crown Court. Part 34 Rule 34.7 is amended to include explicit provision for applications for rulings during preparation for an appeal hearing in the Crown Court. Rule 34.11 is amended to include explicit provision for the conduct of case management by a judge without justices of the peace before such an appeal hearing begins, in exercise of the power conferred on the Criminal Procedure Rules by section 74 of the Senior Courts Act 1981. Part 45 Rule 45.3 is amended, and a note to the rule added, to draw attention to the application of time limits to the court’s powers to make some costs orders. Rules 45.8, 45.9 and 45.10 are amended to supply the procedure where the court requires assistance in assessing costs under one of those rules. Part 47 The rules in the current Part are substituted and rearranged, with some rules added, and some amended, to include new rules about production orders, search warrants and applications for the return of seized property, made in exercise of various powers recently conferred on the Criminal Procedure Rules. The new powers are contained in Schedule 1 to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, Schedule 5 to the Terrorism Act 2000, section 352 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and section 59 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, all of which are amended by section 82 of the Deregulation Act 2015; and in sections 157 and 160 of the Extradition Act 2003, amended by the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. The current rules about (i) orders for the retention of fingerprints (Section 5 of the new Part 47 rules), (ii) investigation anonymity orders (Section 6 of the new Part) and (iii) investigation approval orders (Section 7) are rearranged and renumbered but otherwise unchanged. Part 50 Rule 50.21 is amended to redefine the time limit for a respondent’s notice in reply to an extradition appeal to the High Court. Rules 24.3, 25.14, 38.5, 43.2 and 45.1, and the Glossary entry for hearsay evidence, all are amended to correct cross-references which they contain. These Rules come into force on 4th April 2016.

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 0.90.

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