UK Offence Report

Amendment to the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) Regulations 2020

regulation 2(4) of The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 23) Regulations 2021

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

4 After regulation

42 insert— Offence of failing to work from home where reasonably practicable to do so 42A A person who, without reasonable excuse, contravenes the requirement in regulation 18B commits 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
Objective fault
Burden of proof
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened and that it fell below the standard the provision sets. That is an objective test - what a reasonable person in the same position would have done, not what this defendant actually thought.

What a person personally believed or intended is not the question; the standard is what was reasonable.

“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: objective standard in the offence-creating words: reasonably practicable; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

ome where reasonably practicable to do so 42A A person who, without reasonable excuse, contravenes the requirement in regulation 18B commits an offence.

What would breach regulation 2(4)?

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 18B.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 23) Regulations 2021, 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
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated here: this instrument amends another one, and the penalty for the offence is in the instrument being amended.

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
17 December 2021
In force from
20 December 2021
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.

Part 2A of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 enables the Welsh Ministers, by regulations, to make provision for the purpose of preventing, protecting against, controlling or providing a public health response to the incidence or spread of infection or contamination in Wales. These Regulations are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Wales. These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/1609 (W. 335)) (“the principal Regulations”) to insert new regulation 18B into the principal Regulations to provide that no person may leave the place where they are living for the purposes of work where it is reasonably practicable for the person to work from home. New regulation 42A is inserted into the principal Regulations to provide for an offence of failing to comply with the regulation 18B requirement. A related provision is inserted into regulation 16 of the principal Regulations to provide that the reasonable measures that a person responsible for regulated premises may take under that regulation include allowing or requiring persons who ordinarily work at the premises to work from home. The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. In accordance with the Code, a regulatory impact assessment as to the likely cost and benefit of complying with these Regulations has not been carried out, due to the need to put them in place urgently to deal with a serious and imminent threat to public health.

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 “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