PART 5Penalties etc.
Penalties
28. A person guilty of an offence under these Regulations is liable—
(a)on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, and
(b)on conviction on indictment, to a fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both.
Offences by body corporate or Scottish partnership
29.—(1) Where an offence under these Regulations has been committed by a body corporate and is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or any person purporting to act in any such capacity, that officer or person as well as the body corporate is guilty of that offence and is liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
(2) Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, paragraph (1) applies in relation to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with that member’s functions of management as if that member were a director of the body.
(3) Where a Scottish partnership is guilty of an offence under these Regulations and that offence is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, a partner, that partner as well as the partnership is guilty of that offence and is liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
Proceedings in Scotland
30.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2), summary proceedings for an offence under these Regulations may be commenced in Scotland within a period of 6 months from the date on which evidence sufficient in the opinion of the procurator fiscal to warrant proceedings came to his knowledge.
(2) No such proceedings may be commenced by virtue of this regulation more than 3 years after the commission of the offence.
(3) For the purposes of this regulation, a certificate signed by, or on behalf of, the procurator fiscal and stating the date on which evidence sufficient in the procurator fiscal’s opinion to warrant the proceedings came to the knowledge of the procurator fiscal is conclusive evidence of that fact.
(4) A certificate stating that matter and purporting to be so signed is deemed to be so signed unless the contrary is proved.
(5) Subsection (3) of section 136 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995(1) (date of commencement of proceedings) applies for the purposes of this regulation as it applies for the purposes of that section.
Power to direct that an aircraft must not fly
31.—(1) Where this paragraph applies the CAA may—
(a)direct the person appearing to it to be in command of an aircraft not to permit the aircraft to take off until it has informed that person that the direction is cancelled,
(b)whether or not it has given such a direction, detain the aircraft until it is satisfied that the aircraft will not take off.
(2) Paragraph (1) applies where the CAA has reason to believe that an aircraft is intended to be used by—
(a)a person without an appropriate operating licence in circumstances where such a licence is required, or
(b)an air carrier in breach of the restrictions set out in regulation 10 or 18.
32. It is an offence for a person, without reasonable excuse, to fail to comply with a direction given under regulation 31.