ABSTRACT
No person shall intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse anything provided in the interests of health, safety or welfare in pursuance of any of the relevant statutory provisions.
While this duty is imposed on the world at large, it creates a mens rea offence, in that the persons on whom it is imposed are not liable, unless they have acted recklessly or intentionally. The difficulty of identifying what is meant by ‘reckless’ has already been discussed in Chapter 9. It is not clear whether a person could be liable for intentionally interfering if the interference was well intentioned, but ill-informed, for example, switching off a machine which appeared to be unnecessarily in operation.
