ABSTRACT
The 1977 Act (WPA1977) provides at s 3(1) that ‘a person shall not cause or permit any polluting matter to enter waters’, and at s 3(2) that it is an offence to do so. It had been a defence pursuant to s 3(3) of the WPA 1977 for a person to establish that he had taken reasonable care to prevent the polluting matter from entering the waters concerned. The scope of this defence was limited by an amended s 3(3) inserted by the 1990 Act (WPA1990) to a more specific set of circumstances that must pertain in order for the defence to be available. Pursuant to the amended s 3(3), it is a defence to a charge of committing an offence under s 3 for a person to prove that that he took reasonable care by providing, maintaining, using, operating or supervising facilities, or by employing practices or methods of operation that were suitable for the purpose of preventing the polluting matter from entering the waters.
