UK Offence Report

23 Any person who without lawful authority or excuse contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of…

article 23 of The Brucellosis (Wales) Order 2006

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

23 Any person who without lawful authority or excuse contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of this Order is guilty of an offence against the Animal Health Act 1981.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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 lawful excuse (an element).

The defence, as drafted

23 Any person who without lawful authority or excuse contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of this Order is guilty of an offence against the Animal Health Act 1981.

What would breach article 23?

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 without lawful authority or excuse contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of this Order.
  2. Being served with a notice under the Brucellosis (Wales) Order 2006 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

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

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

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
21 March 2006
In force from
31 March 2006
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.

(This note does not form part of the Order) This Order revokes and substantially re-enacts the Brucellosis Order 1997 (S.I. 1997/758) in relation to Wales. It implements the provisions relating to milk of Council Directive 64/432/EEC as amended (on animal health problems affecting intra-Community trade in bovine animals and swine) (OJ No L121, 29.7.64, p. 1977) and Council Directive 77/391/EEC, as amended (introducing Community measures for the eradication of brucellosis, tuberculosis and leucosis in cattle) (OJ No L145, 13.6.77, p.44). These Directives require the operation of a monitoring and testing programme to maintain the officially brucellosis-free status of Great Britain under Council Directive 64/432/EEC. The principal changes made by this Order relate to the arrangements for testing milk for evidence of brucellosis and the removal of the List of Approved Laboratories that were contained in Schedule 1 to the 1997 Order. Article 7(1) sets out the duties of those who buy milk in Wales for resale to ensure that milk is sent for testing to an approved laboratory. The person in charge of an approved laboratory must notify the National Assembly within 24 hours if the result of any test for brucellosis is positive and within one month if the result is negative. That person must maintain records of all the tests carried out for a period of one year (article 7(5)). The Order is enforced by the local authority (article 24). A failure to comply with any provision of this Order is an offence against the Animal Health Act 1981 (article 23). A Regulatory Appraisal in relation to this Order has been prepared and placed in the library of the National Assembly. Copies can be obtained from the Office of the Chief Veterinary Officer, Endemic Diseases Branch, Welsh Assembly Government, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NQ.

Read the full note and every offence in this 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