UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 9 of Food Supplements Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003

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

9 If any person contravenes regulation 4, 5, 6 or 7 he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
Legal burden on the defendant

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 gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

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

The defence, as drafted

0 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove – a that the food in respect of which the offence is alleged to have been committed was intended for export to a country which has legislation analogous to these Regulations and that the food complies with that legislation; and b in the case of export to a me

What would breach regulation 9?

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.

  1. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Food Supplements Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003, whatever the reason for doing it.
  2. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

in Northern Ireland a reference to a level is construed as referring to the standard scale as it currently stands (Fines and Penalties (NI) Order 1984 art.5(3)), not as it stood when the instrument was made.

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.

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
20 May 2003
In force from
1 August 2005
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

(This note is not part of the Regulations.) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations implement Directive 2002/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to food supplements. The Regulations concern the sale (as defined in regulation 2(1)) of food supplements which are sold as food and presented as such (regulation 3). A food supplement is defined as a food sold in dose form whose purpose is to supplement the normal diet and which is a concentrated source of a vitamin or mineral or other substance with a nutritional or physiological effect, alone or in combination (regulation 2(1)). With effect from 1st August 2005 the Regulations – a prohibit the sale of a food supplement to the ultimate consumer unless it is prepacked (regulations 4 and 2(2)), b prohibit the sale of a food supplement in the manufacture of which a vitamin or mineral has been used, unless certain compositional requirements are met, subject to a transitional provision (regulation 5 and the Schedules), c prohibit the sale of a food supplement which is ready for delivery to the ultimate consumer or a catering establishment unless certain requirements as to labelling, presentation and advertising of the product are met (regulations 6 and 7). For the purposes of the transitional provision in regulation 5(3), dossiers may be submitted by interested parties to the Food Standards Agency for onward transmission to the European Commission. Dossiers may be submitted to any of the Agency’s offices, which are situated at – Aviation House, 125 Kingsway, London WC2B 6NH; 10C Clarendon Road, Belfast BT1 3BG; St Magnus House, 6th Floor, 25 Guild Street, Aberdeen AB11 6NJ; 1st Floor, Southgate House, Wood Street, Cardiff CF10 1EW. Article 6(2) of the Directive (labelling, presentation and advertising must not attribute to food supplements the property of preventing, treating or curing a human disease, or refer to such properties) is already implemented in the Food Labelling Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 (regulation 40(1) and Schedule 6, Part I, paragraph 2). The Regulations make provision as to responsibility for enforcement (regulation 8); create offences and penalties (regulation 9), and apply certain provisions of the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 (regulation 11). The Regulations provide a defence in relation to exports, in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 of Council Directive 89/397/EEC (O.J. No. L186, 30.6.89, p. 23) on the official control of foodstuffs (regulation 10).

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