UK Offence Report

Amendment of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel, Pre-Departure Testing and Operator…

regulation 13 of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Public Health Information to Travellers and Operator Liability) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 (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

13 For regulation 6 (offences) substitute— Offences 6 1 An operator who fails to comply with a requirement in— a regulation 5(1), b regulation 5(3), or c a request under regulation 5(4) to provide records and information within the period specified for the purposes of regulation 5(5), 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 13?

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. Being served with a notice under the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Public Health Information to Travellers and Operator Liability) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. 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
Status not determined
Made
16 February 2022
In force from
18 February 2022
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.

These Regulations are made in response to the ongoing 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”. The Regulations amend 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”) and 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”). The Public Health Information Regulations and the Operator Liability Regulations impose requirements on persons operating international passenger services arriving into Wales from outside the common travel area (“operators”). In consequence of the revocation and replacement of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (Wales) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/574 (W. 132) by the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (Wales) Regulations 2022 (S.I. 2022/126 (W. 41)), these Regulations make amendments to the Public Health Information Regulations and Operator Liability Regulations. The Public Health Information Regulations are also amended to provide that operators need only provide specified information to passengers pre-departure and on-board an international passenger service. The Schedule is amended to update the information that must be provided to passengers. In addition, the Operator Liability Regulations are amended to replace the current suite of obligations on operators with an obligation to maintain adequate processes and systems to ensure that passengers possess certain information or evidence. Operators are also required to retain such records and information as are required to show that they have maintained adequate systems and processes. Amendments are also made to ensure that a fixed penalty notice can be issued in respect of an ongoing breach of the new duty where a previous fixed penalty notice issued in respect of the breach has been paid. There has been no regulatory impact assessment in relation to these Regulations 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