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ROYAL COURT
(Samedi Division)
9 July 1999
Before: F C Hamon, Deputy Bailiff and
Jurats de Veulle and Allo
AG
V
Racebets Ltd
1 count ofcontravening Article 2(1)(b) of the Regulation of Undertakings and Development (Jersey) Law, 1973, by increasing the number of persons employed as a bookmaker without a licence
Plea:Facts admitted.
Details of Offence:
Defendant engaged four persons in its bookmakers’ undertaking without a RUD licence. None of the persons were exempt.
Details of Mitigation:
Guilty plea. Defendant was at any rate for the most part open and honest with RUD. The defendant company had been acquired by a Manx company only one day after the new Regulations had come into effect. A sin of omission rather than commission. Defendant readily accepted that it should have taken advice and had failed to do so.
Previous Convictions: None.
Conclusions: £5,000 fine; £1,500 costs.
Sentence & Observations of the Court:£2,500 fine; £750 costs.
Offence committed more in the breach than in the observance. However, the Court wished to make it clear that failure to comply with the Law will result in severe penalties.
A J Olsen, Crown Advocate
Advocate J G P Wheeler for the Defendant Company
JUDGMENT
THE DEPUTY BAILIFF: The Manpower Survey form for September 1998 and dated 19 October 1998, under the signature of a director states - under the heading of total persons engaged - that there are three full-time residentially qualified employees. The form has been completed with care. There is a box incorrectly annotated. It is crossed out and then initialled and the form has a declaration duly signed which reads:
"I declare that the information required to be returned in accordance with the Regulation of Undertakings and Development (Jersey) Law, 1973, as amended, is to the best of my knowledge truly and correctly stated on this return."
However we look at it that is a false declaration. There are many degrees of culpability and this may not, in the light of later correspondence, be the most serious. The form is an application for a licence sent to the director on the 26th October, 1998. He declares the three employees but the form does not ask whether they are qualified or not. In a new form he now asks for three residentially qualified staff to man the second shop that was purchased by the company as indicated on the Manpower return filed earlier. The reply which he received is by letter and at the end of it, it asks this question:
"Accordingly it is noted from your application that you presently employ two full-time and one part-time member of staff and before consideration can be given to your application for further members of staff, please would you kindly provide details as to when your present employees were engaged together with details of their residential status and/or length of time of residence in Jersey."
The reply of the 20th makes it perfectly clear that three employees originally entered as having residential qualifications had not got residential qualifications. The letter gives no indication that the company understands that it is in breach of the law. Now in this regard we think that this is a crime committed more in the breach than in the observance. It might be helpful, we feel, if in future forms referred employers when they are signing the form to the serious consequences of breaking what is a very necessary law. We say that particularly because the correspondence and the forms were requested by the company to be sent for completion outside the Island. Nevertheless that does not, in our view, excuse the company from taking advice and filling in forms correctly, particularly as their consequences on this small Island can be so serious. We repeat everything that we have said this morning, but because of the particular consequences of this matter, we are going to fine the company £2,500 with £750 costs.
Authorities
Regulation of Undertakings and Development (Jersey) Law, 1973: Article 2.