UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (Wales) Order 2024

the instrument as a whole of The Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (Wales) Order 2024

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

Contravening this instrument is an offence under section

73 of the Animal Health Act 1981. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Not determined

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.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

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. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (Wales) Order 2024.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to section 73 of the Animal Health Act 1981.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

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
11 June 2024
In force from
Not determined
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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order provides for the control and eradication of Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (“BVD”) in Wales. Part 1 of this Order contains general provisions. Article 3 extends the definition of disease under section 88(1) of the Animal Health Act 1981 (c. 22) to BVD. Part 2 of this Order provides for the approval of veterinary surgeons and laboratories to carry out functions under the Order. Part 3 of this Order provides for the sampling and notification procedures to be followed. The types of samples listed in article 11 may only be taken by, or under the supervision of, an approved veterinary surgeon. Samples must be submitted for testing under the conditions in article 12. Article 13 provides for the conditions applicable where an ear tag sample of tissue is taken from a bovine animal. Articles 14 and 15 apply where a management tag has been applied to an animal. Article 16 specifies the notification requirements of test results by operators of approved laboratories. Article 17 requires keepers to notify others of the BVD status of a bovine animal in certain circumstances. Part 4 of this Order provides for the BVD status of individual bovine animals (article 19) and herds (article 20). An approved veterinary surgeon may change the individual status of an animal (article 21) or the collective status of a herd (article 22), and must notify such a change to the keeper and the Welsh Ministers (article 23). Part 5 of this Order provides for the screening of bovine herds and individual animals to determine the presence of BVD. A keeper must arrange for the sampling of a herd for BVD in accordance with articles 25 and 26. Subject to the test results of this sample (articles 27 and 28), further testing of individual animals, including calves, must be carried out (articles 29 to 37). Part 6 of this Order provides for movement restrictions for bovine herds with a collective BVD status of not negative (article 38), for animals with an individual BVD status of positive (article 39), or where sampling and testing obligations have not been met (article 42). Article 40 specifies the pre-movement testing procedure for animals in a herd which has a collective BVD status of not negative, and article 41 provides for post-movement testing of animals from outside of Wales which are moved onto a holding in Wales. Article 43 provides for the separation of animals with an individual BVD status of persistently infected from the rest of the herd. Part 7 of this Order contains enforcement provisions. Articles 45, 46 and 47 provide for enforcement, powers of entry and powers of inspectors. Article 48 provides for offences by bodies corporate. The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to this Order. As a result, it was not considered necessary to carry out a regulatory impact assessment as to the likely costs and benefits of complying with this Order.

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 0.55.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.55 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