UK Offence Report

Amendment of the Operator Liability Regulations

regulation 3(4)(a) of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Operator Liability and Public Health Information to Travellers) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (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

a for in paragraph (1), substitute

1 An operator who fails to comply with

a requirement in—

a regulation 5(1),

b regulation 5A(1), or

c regulation 5B(1), 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
an operator
Conduct
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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 an operator 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 3(4)(a)?

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 an operator fails to comply with a requirement in— a regulation 5(1), b regulation 5A(1), or c regulation 5B(1).
  2. Being served with a notice under the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Operator Liability and Public Health Information to Travellers) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 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 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
19 February 2021
In force from
20 February 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.

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Public Health Information for Persons Travelling to Wales etc.) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/595 (W. 136)) (“the Public Health Information Regulations”) impose requirements on operators of international passenger services coming from outside the common travel area to an airport, heliport or seaport in Wales (“operators”), to provide passengers with specified public health information. These Regulations amend the Public Health Information Regulations to update the information that operators are required to provide to passengers who arrive in Wales. The updated information that operators are required to provide includes information about the requirement under regulation 6B of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (Wales) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/574 (W. 132)) (“the International Travel Regulations”), to arrange post arrival testing (Regulation 2). These Regulations also amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel, Pre-Departure Testing and Operator Liability) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (S.I. 2021/48 (W. 11)) (“the Operator Liability Regulations”) in consequence of amendments made to the International Travel Regulations on 15 February 2021. Regulation 3 amends the Operator Liability Regulations so as to— a require operators to ensure that passengers who arrive in Wales from outside the common travel area on international passenger services have made arrangements for post arrival testing in accordance with regulation 6B of the International Travel Regulations; b require persons operating transport services (which includes flights by means of private aircraft) for passengers travelling to Wales from outside the common travel area, to take reasonable steps to ensure that passengers who have been in a country or territory listed in Schedule 3A to the International Travel Regulations (commonly referred to as the red list countries) do not arrive into a port in Wales, unless they are persons to whom regulation 12E(2) and (3) of those Regulations applies (i.e. exempted persons); c create offences for the breach of those requirements; and d make consequential amendments. The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. As a result, a regulatory impact assessment has not been prepared as to the likely cost and benefit of complying with these Regulations

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