The Industrial Pollution Control (Northern Ireland) Order 1997

Evidence in connection with certain pollution offences

25.—(1) Information provided or obtained pursuant to or under a condition of an authorisation (including information so provided or obtained, or recorded, by means of any apparatus) shall be admissible in evidence in any proceedings, whether against the person subject to the condition or any other person.

(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), apparatus shall be presumed in any proceedings to register or record accurately, unless the contrary is shown or the authorisation otherwise provides.

(3) Where—

(a) an entry is required under Article 7 to be made in any record as to the observance of any condition of an authorisation; and

(b) the entry has not been made;

that fact shall be admissible in any proceedings as evidence that that condition has not been observed.

(4) In any proceedings for an offence under Article 23(1)(a) consisting in a failure to comply with the general condition implied in every authorisation by Article 7(4), it shall be for the accused to prove that there was no better available technique not entailing excessive cost than was in fact used to satisfy the condition.

(5) In this Article—

• “apparatus” includes any meter or other device for measuring, assessing, determining, recording or enabling to be recorded, the volume, temperature, radioactivity, rate, nature, origin, composition or effect of any substance, flow, discharge, emission, deposit or abstraction;

• “condition of an authorisation” includes any requirement to which a person is subject under or in consequence of an authorisation.