Weights and Measures Act 1985

20 Offences in connection with public equipment

(1) Subsection (2) below shall apply where any article, vehicle (whether loaded or unloaded) or animal has been brought for weighing or measuring by means of weighing or measuring equipment which is available for use by the public and is provided for the purpose of weighing or measuring articles, vehicles or animals of the description in question.

(2) If any person appointed to attend to weighing or measuring by means of the equipment in question—

(a) without reasonable cause fails to carry out the weighing or measuring on demand.

(b) carries out the weighing or measuring unfairly,

(c) fails to deliver to the person demanding the weighing or measuring or to his agent a statement in writing of the weight or other measurement found, or

(d) fails to make a record of the weighing or measuring, including the time and date of it and, in the case of the weighing of a vehicle, such particulars of the vehicle and of any load on the vehicle as will identify that vehicle and that load,

he shall be guilty of an offence.

(3) If in connection with any such equipment as is mentioned in subsection (1) above—

(a) any person appointed to attend to weighing or measuring by means of the equipment delivers a false statement of any weight or other measurement found or makes a false record of any weighing or measuring, or

(b) any person commits any fraud in connection with any, or any purported, weighing or measuring by means of that equipment,

he shall be guilty of an offence.

(4) If, in the case of a weighing or measuring of any article, vehicle or animal carried out by means of any such equipment as is mentioned in subsection (1) above, the person bringing the article, vehicle or animal for weighing or measuring, on being required by the person attending to the weighing or measuring to give his name and address, fails to do so or gives a name or address which is incorrect, he shall be guilty of an offence.

(5) The person making any weighing or measuring equipment available for use by the public (in this section referred to as " the responsible person ") shall retain for a period of not less than two years any record of any weighing or measuring by means of that equipment made by any person appointed to attend to the weighing or measuring.

(6) An inspector, subject to the production of his credentials if so requested, may require the responsible person to produce any such record as is mentioned in subsection (5) above for inspection at any time while it is retained by him.

(7) If the responsible person fails to retain any such record as is mentioned in subsection (5) above in accordance with that subsection or fails to produce it in accordance with subsection (6) above, he shall be guilty of an offence.

(8) If any person wilfully destroys or defaces any such record as is mentioned in subsection (5) above before the expiration of two years from the date when it was made, he shall be guilty of an offence.