UK Offence Report

1 An operator who fails to comply with the requirement in regulation 5(1) commits an offence.

regulation 6(1) of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel, Pre-Departure Testing and Operator Liability) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 An operator who fails to comply with the requirement in regulation 5(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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 6(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 an operator fails to comply with the requirement in regulation 5(1).
  2. Being served with a notice under the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel, Pre-Departure Testing and Operator Liability) (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
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ 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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel, Operator Liability and Public Health Information to Travellers etc.) (Wales) (Revocation) Regulations 2022
Revoked on
18 March 2022
Made
15 January 2021
In force from
18 January 2021
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations are made in response to the danger to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Wales. Section 45B of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 enables the Welsh Ministers, by regulations, to make provision for the purpose of (amongst other things) preventing danger to public health from “vessels, aircraft, trains or other conveyances arriving at any place”. Part 2 of these Regulations amends the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (Wales) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/574 (W. 132)) (“the International Travel Regulations”) to introduce a requirement for persons travelling to Wales from outside the common travel area to possess a notification of a negative coronavirus test upon arrival in Wales. Regulation 3(2) of these Regulations inserts a new regulation 6A into the International Travel Regulations, which sets out the notification requirements and provides details of persons who are exempt from these requirements. Regulation 6A also references a new Schedule 1A into the International Travel Regulations, which is inserted by regulation 3(6) and provides further details as to what constitutes a valid test and notification for the purposes of regulation 6A and gives further details in relation to categories of exempt persons. Regulation 3(3) amends regulation 14 of the International Travel Regulations so that a breach of the requirements in regulation 6A is a criminal offence and a non-exhaustive list of reasonable excuses that can be raised in defence are listed. Regulation 3(4) amends regulation 16 of the International Travel Regulations so that a fixed penalty notice can be issued in relation to an offence committed under regulation 6A. Part 3 of these Regulations introduces a requirement for persons operating international passenger services (“operators”) arriving into Wales from outside the common travel area to ensure that passengers on such services possess notification of a negative test result (regulation 5(1)). A breach of this requirement is an offence (regulation 6(1)). Regulation 7 allows an authorised person to deal with an offence under regulation 6(1) by way of fixed penalty notice. A fixed penalty notice must give details of the particulars of the offence, including the name of the passenger who has failed to provide notification of a negative test result. A full impact assessment has not been completed due to the urgent nature of this instrument. An Explanatory Memorandum has been published alongside this instrument at www.legislation.gov.uk.

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 “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