Housing on Farms Act (Northern Ireland) 1972

14 Offences and penalties. N.I.

(1) Every person guilty of any breach or contravention of any condition imposed by virtue of section 3 or by virtue of section 6 shall, without prejudice to any other liability, be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding[F1 level 5 on the standard scale].

Subs.(2) rep. by 1976 NI 25

(3) In the event of any breach or contravention of any condition imposed under this Act, there shall become due and repayable to the Ministry, and recoverable upon demand made in writing by the Ministry as a civil debt due to it, such sum as bears to the amount of the grant paid by the Ministry in respect of the premises to which the breach or contravention relates the same proportion as that portion of the period for which the condition was imposed which, at the time of the breach or contravention, remains unexpired bears to the whole of the period.

(4) Where a person has been convicted of an offence under subsection (1), the court before which he is convicted may, on such conviction, order that, in addition to the amount repayable by him under subsection (3), he shall repay to the Ministry the balance of the grant paid in respect of the premises to which the breach or contravention relates or such lesser sum as the court may consider necessary to remedy the breach or contravention, and that order may, without prejudice to any other remedy, be enforced in like manner as a sum adjudged to be paid by a conviction of that court.

(5) If, for the purpose of obtaining a grant under this Act, either for himself or for any other person, any person knowingly or recklessly makes any false or fraudulent statement or representation—

(a) the person making such statement or representation; and

(b) any person who received any payment under this Act knowing that such statement or representation had been made;

shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable—

(i) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding[F1 level 3 on the standard scale], or to both;

(ii) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to[F1 an unlimited fine], or to both.

(6) Where any offence punishable under this section has been committed by a body corporate, then, without prejudice to the liability of that body, every person who, at the time of such commission, was a director or other officer of the body corporate, or was purporting to act in any such capacity, shall be liable to be prosecuted as if he had personally committed that offence and shall, if on such prosecution it is shown that he consented to, or connived at, or did not exercise all such diligence as he ought in the circumstances to have exercised to prevent, the offence, be liable to the like conviction and punishment as if he had personally been guilty of that offence.

F1 1984 NI 3