UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

paragraph 1 of SCHEDULE 1 of The Motorcycles (Type-Approval) Regulations 2018

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

1 A person who is an economic operator is guilty of an offence if that person—

a contravenes any prohibition in these Regulations or the Motorcycles Regulation; or

b fails to comply with any requirement or obligation in these Regulations or the Motorcycles Regulation.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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.

What would breach paragraph 1 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. Being served with a notice under the Motorcycles (Type-Approval) Regulations 2018 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
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
6 months

level 5 is unlimited in England and Wales for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015 (LASPO 2012 s.85, S.I. 2015/664).

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
21 February 2018
In force from
20 May 2018
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 make provision in connection with Regulation (EU) No 168/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the approval and market surveillance of two- or three-wheel vehicles and quadricycles (OJ No L 60, 2.3.2013, p.52) “the Motorcycles Regulation”. In particular, they— appoint the Secretary of State as the approval authority and the market surveillance authority for the purposes of the Motorcycles Regulation (regulations 3 and 4) specify when the Secretary of State may treat any application as having been withdrawn by the manufacturer (regulation 5) or when it must be refused (regulation 6) require the holder of a type-approval to retain certain records (regulation 7) derogate from the requirements of the Motorcycles Regulation in respect of components or separate technical units which have been exempted from one or more provisions of the Motorcycles Regulation, or which are not required to be type-approved by the Motorcycles Regulation (regulation 8) provide for a review procedure in respect of decision notices given under article 53 of the Motorcycles Regulation (regulation 9) specify when an approval may be withdrawn (regulation 10) and the effect of such a withdrawal or a suspension (regulation 11) set out how any notice or other document is to be served on the approval authority, market surveillance authority or enforcement authority (regulation 12) authorise the approval authority to provide and maintain testing stations and apparatus to use for examination of products for the purposes of the Motorcycles Regulation (regulation 13) provide that breach of the duty to provide certain technical information which causes a person to sustain loss or damage is actionable at the suit of that person, and a defence available to the manufacturer where they have exercised all due diligence (regulation 14) provide for breach of the Regulations or the Motorcycles Regulation to be an offence, and for offences to be punishable either by criminal or civil penalties (parts 1 and 2 of Schedule 1) make provision for enforcement of the Regulations, including in connection with false statements and obstruction of officers, powers of search, detention of goods by customs officers and recovery of expenses of enforcement (part 3 of Schedule 1) makes consequential amendments to various enactments, and revokes instruments replaced by the Motorcycles Regulation (Schedule 2) The net costs imposed on business, the voluntary sector and the public sector by these Regulations have been assessed as being less than £5m in any year and therefore a full impact assessment has not been prepared, and a Review provision not included.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this became law

This instrument became law without a debate or a vote. Under the negative procedure it took effect unless a motion to stop it succeeded, and none was tabled.

Neither House could have amended it. A statutory instrument is put to each House as a whole thing, to be approved or not; the Houses can reject an instrument or record their regret, but they cannot change a word of it. That is the constitutional position for every offence on this site.

The full procedural history →

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