UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 5(1) of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Medium) (England) Regulations 2020

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, the person— a contravenes a Tier 1 restriction, b contravenes a requirement imposed, or a direction given, under regulation 4, c fails to comply with a reasonable instruction or a prohibition notice given by a relevant person under regulation 4, or d obstructs any person carrying out a function under these Regulations (including any person who is a relevant person for the purposes of regulation 4).

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
obstructing an official exercising a power
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

1 A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, the person— a contravenes a Tier 1 restriction, b contravenes a requirement imposed, or a direction given, under regulation 4, c fails to comply with a reasonable instruction or a prohibition notice given by a relevant person under regulation 4, or d obstruc

What would breach regulation 5(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. Refusing to let an inspector onto premises they are entitled to enter under the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Medium) (England) Regulations 2020.
  2. Sending an official away, or telling staff to say nothing, where the power being exercised does not depend on anyone's consent.
  3. Physically blocking an examination, or removing something an officer has said they intend to inspect.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£100
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 Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020
Revoked on
5 November 2020
Made
12 October 2020
In force from
14 October 2020
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 impose restrictions on gatherings and businesses in England, other than in the areas specified in Schedule 2, where the local COVID-19 alert level is assessed as being medium. The restrictions on businesses include the imposition of restricted hours for certain businesses and closure of certain businesses. The need for the restrictions in these Regulations must be reviewed by the Secretary of State every 28 days. The Regulations themselves expire six months after the date on which they are made. No impact assessment has been prepared for these Regulations.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this became law

Both Houses had to approve this instrument before it could take effect, and did so.

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 →

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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 “commits 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