UK Offence Report

Special provisions relating to sexual offences

rule 93C(10) of The Armed Forces (Service Court Rules) (Amendment) Rules 2022

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

10 In this rule— a an “offence of human trafficking for sexual exploitation” is an offence under section 42 (criminal conduct) as respects which the corresponding offence under the law of England and Wales is— i an offence under section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (human trafficking) committed with a view to exploitation that includes behaviour within section 3(3) of that Act (meaning of exploitation); ii an offence of attempting or conspiring to commit an offence mentioned in sub-paragraph (i); or iii an offence under Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 where the offence (or one of the offences) which the offender intended or believed would be committed is an offence mentioned in sub-paragraph (i); b a sexual offence or offence of human trafficking for sexual exploitation is a summary offence if the corresponding offence in respect of that offence for the purposes of section 42 is a summary offence under the law of England and Wales; c a “relevant recording”, in relation to a complainant, is a video recording of an interview of the complainant made with a view to its admission as the evidence in chief of the complainant.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 rule 93C(10)?

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. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Armed Forces (Service Court Rules) (Amendment) Rules 2022.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

penalty is that of the referenced enactment; not stated in this instrument.

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
1 June 2022
In force from
4 July 2022
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 amendments to the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (Application to Service Courts) Order 2009 (S.I. 1999/2083) (“the 1999 Order”), the Armed Forces (Court Martial) Rules 2009 (S.I. 2009/2041) (“the Court Martial rules”) and the Armed Forces (Service Civilian Court) Rules 2009 (S.I. 2009/1209) (“the Service Civilian Court rules”). These amendments relate to the provision of special measures for vulnerable and intimidated witnesses in proceedings in the service courts. The amendments made by these Rules to the 1999 Order are to Articles 3 and 4 of that Order, which applies provisions of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (c. 23) (“the 1999 Act”) on the use of special measures in civilian criminal proceedings to the service courts, allowing these special measures to be used in proceedings in the service courts. The amendments firstly apply section 22A of the 1999 Act to proceedings in the Court Martial Appeal Court, which provides rules on the use of video recorded evidence in chief in proceedings relating to sexual offences. The amendments also apply section 28 of the 1999 Act to proceedings in the Court Martial Appeal Court and section 28(1) to proceedings in the Court Martial and Service Civilian Court, allowing the use of video recorded cross-examination or re-examination as a special measure in these courts. The amendments made by these Rules to the Court Martial rules and Service Civilian Court rules firstly insert new rules 93A to 93B in the Court Martial rules and 78A to 78B in the Service Civilian Court rules, which are based on section 21, 22 of the 1999 Act on the use of video recorded evidence in chief for child witnesses. A new rule 93C is inserted in the Court Martial rules, which is based on section 22A of the 1999 Act on the use of video recorded evidence in chief in proceedings for sexual offences. The amendments also insert a new rule 95 in the Court Martial rules and 80A in the Service Civilian Court rules, which are based on section 28(2) to (7) of the 1999 Act, to supplement section 28(1) of that Act, which will apply in the Court Martial and Service Civilian Court under the amendment made by these Rules to the 1999 Order. Finally, these Rules make amendments relating to eligibility for special measures of witnesses in proceedings for offences relating to domestic abuse and allowing for such witnesses to give evidence in private to mirror changes made to equivalent provisions in the 1999 Act by section 62 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (c. 17). A full impact assessment has not been prepared for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.

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 →

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 0.61.

Basis
the provision says a person “commits an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.61 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