Regulations and orders: supplementary provisions

article 25(3)(a) of The Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991

Revoked
Strict liability
Summary only
Food, consumer protection, trading standards, product safety and age-restricted sales

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

a provide that an offence under the regulations or order shall be punishable on summary conviction or on indictment or in either one way or the other; and

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds: a person
Conduct: breaching the provision
Fault element: Strict liability
Burden of proof: No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach article 25(3)(a)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991.

Penalty

Mode of trial: Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine: Not determined
Maximum prison (summary): Not determined

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Sentencing organisations: fines and the means of a corporate defendant All courts in England and Wales
How a fine on a company is arrived at from its turnover. Relevant far beyond the guidelines that state it, because a very large share of the offences in this corpus can only be committed by an organisation.
Health and safety offences, corporate manslaughter and food safety and hygiene offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 February 2016
Covers breaches of duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the regulations made under it, and food safety and food hygiene offences. Sentencing turns on culpability and on the seriousness and likelihood of harm risked, not only on the harm that happened.
Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017
The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.
General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019
The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.
Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status: Revoked
Revoked by: Tetrachloroethylene in Olive Oil (Revocation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000
Revoked on: 3 July 2000
Made: 20 March 1991
In force from: Not determined
Extent: Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

This Order makes new provision in place of the Food (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 and the Milk (Northern Ireland) Order 1983.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

Prohibition ordersarticle 10(5)
Emergency prohibition notices and ordersarticle 11(5)
Emergency prohibition notices and ordersarticle 11(6)
Emergency control ordersarticle 12(2)
Emergency control ordersarticle 12(6)
Selling food not of the nature or substance or quality demandedarticle 13(1)
Falsely describing or presenting foodarticle 14(1)
Falsely describing or presenting foodarticle 14(2)
Falsely describing or presenting foodarticle 14(3)
Obstruction, etc., of officersarticle 34(1)
Obstruction, etc., of officersarticle 34(2)
Rendering food injurious to healtharticle 6

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.60.

Basis: the provision says the conduct is “punishable”
Confidence: 0.60 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source

This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
The Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
Food, consumer protection, trading standards, product safety and age-restricted salesOther offences on the same subject
Offences created in 1991