UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 28(1) of The Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023 (revoked)

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 contravenes the requirement in regulation 14(3) (notice to the Environment Agency) is guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
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 regulation 28(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 contravenes the requirement in regulation 14(3) (notice to the Environment Agency).
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

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 February 2023
In force from
28 February 2023
Extent
E

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 impose requirements on producers who are established in England to collect data on the packaging they supply to others, and, in some cases, to report some of that information to the Environment Agency. Part 1 (regulations 1 to 14) contains the interpretation and general provisions for the instrument. Part 2 (regulations 15 to 18) sets out the obligations on producers. Schedule 1 identifies the information which producers are required to collect and report on. Part 3 (regulations 19 to 21) makes provision for registered schemes and exempts producers who are members of a registered scheme from their data reporting obligations under these Regulations provided that they satisfy the requirements in regulation 19(2). Registered schemes are required to make reports on behalf of each of their members who satisfy these requirements. Part 3 also makes provision in relation to changes to the membership of a scheme in the middle of a relevant year. Part 4 (regulations 22 to 27) sets out the powers and duties of the Environment Agency under these Regulations. Part 5 (regulation 28 and 29) provides for a number of offences and penalties for breach of the requirements imposed by these Regulations. It also provides for the Regulations to be reviewed every five years, in accordance with the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2016. A full impact assessment of the effect that this instrument will have on the costs of business, the voluntary sector and the public sector is available from www.legislation.gov.uk and from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Seacole Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF.

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