Offences and penalties

Q: Is regulation 29(2) of The Specified Risk Material Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997 a strict liability offence?

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.

regulation 29(2) of The Specified Risk Material Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997

Status not determined
Strict liability
Either way
Food, consumer protection, trading standards, product safety and age-restricted sales

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

2 If any person contravenes— a paragraph (1); b any other provision of these Regulations; or c a direction given by the Department under regulation 26, he shall be guilty of an offence and liable— i on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum; or ii on conviction on indictment, to a fine or imprisonment not exceeding the two years or to both.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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: contravening a requirement of the instrument
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 regulation 29(2)?

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 the thing the provision prohibits under the Specified Risk Material Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997, whatever the reason for doing it.
Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial: Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine: £5,000
Maximum prison (summary): Not determined

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

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.
Imposition of community and custodial sentences: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
When a community order or custody is justified at all, and the presumption against short custodial sentences.
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: Status not determined
Made: 29 December 1997
In force from: 1 January 1998
Extent: Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

These Regulations control specified risk material, being material which may contain the agent containing bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in respect of food. The Regulations continue in force provisions in respect of food up to now contained in the Heads of Sheep and Goats (Treatment and Disposal) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 and the Specified Bovine Material (Treatment and Disposal) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997. The Regulations implement in part— a Commission Decision 94/474/EC (O.J. No. L194, 29.7.94, p. 96) concerning certain protection measures relating to bovine spongiform encephalopathy and repealing Decisions 89/469/EEC and 90/200/EEC; and b the provisions relating to animal waste of Council Directive 90/667/EEC (O.J. No. L363, 27.12.90, p. 51) laying down the veterinary rules for the disposal of animal waste, for its placing on the market and for the prevention of pathogens in feeding stuffs of animal or fish origin and amending Directive 90/425/EEC as read with Commission Decision 92/562/EEC (O.J. No. L359, 9.12.92, p. 23) and Commission Decision 94/382/EC (O.J. No. L172, 7.7.94, p. 25), which was amended by Commission Decision 95/29/EC (O.J. No. L38, 18.2.95, p. 17). The Regulations control the sale and use of specified risk material for human consumption (regulation 6) and the production of mechanically recovered meat (regulations 7 and 8). Provision is made for the initial treatment of specified risk material (regulations 9, 10 and 13) and the rendering of whole carcases (regulation 11). The Regulations prohibit the removal of the brain and eyes from a bovine animal (regulation 14) and prohibit the removal of the spinal cord from a ruminant animal (regulation 15). Regulations 16 to 19 provide particular requirements in relation to sheep and goats. These are the marking of young animals with a young lamb stamp, requirements as to the transport of unmarked carcases of sheep and goats, the presence of official veterinary surgeons at slaughterhouses and the possession of unmarked carcases of sheep and goats. Regulation 20 prescribes the procedure for bringing in specified risk material from Great Britain, the Isle of Man or any of the Channel Islands. Regulation 21 regulates the consignment of specified risk material once it has been removed from the carcase and regulations 22 to 24 require the approval of collection centres, incinerators, rendering plants and other premises that process specified bovine material. Regulations 25 to 31 contain provisions on veterinary and laboratory premises, directions, transport, storage, samples, enforcement, application of provisions of the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 for the purposes of the Regulations. Regulations 32 revokes the Heads of Sheep and Goats (Treatment and Disposal) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 and the Specified Bovine Material (Treatment and Disposal) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

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 0.92.

Basis: the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence: 0.92 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 Specified Risk Material Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997 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 1997