UK Offence Report

1 A person shall be guilty of an offence if, without reasonable excuse, proof of which shall lie on that…

regulation 7(1) of The Potatoes Originating in Egypt (Scotland) Regulations 2001

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 A person shall be guilty of an offence if, without reasonable excuse, proof of which shall lie on that person, they contravene or fail to comply with regulation 3(1) or 4(1) above.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
Mixed — some elements strict, some not
Burden of proof
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

The prosecution must prove the conduct, and - for those elements the provision qualifies - the state of mind it names. The remaining elements carry no fault requirement, so they are strict.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: the offence itself carries no fault word, but a duty it criminalises by cross-reference uses reasonable cause to suspect; which element that governs was not determined; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

1 A person shall be guilty of an offence if, without reasonable excuse, proof of which shall lie on that person, they contravene or fail to comply with regulation 3(1) or 4(1) above.

What would breach regulation 7(1)?

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 Potatoes Originating in Egypt (Scotland) Regulations 2001, 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 Scotland a reference to a level is construed as referring to the standard scale as it currently stands (CP(S)A 1995 s.225(2)), 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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Potatoes Originating in Egypt (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (revoked)
Revoked on
31 March 2004
Made
12 November 2001
In force from
3 December 2001
Extent
S

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

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

These Regulations, which extend to Scotland only, consolidate with amendments the Potatoes Originating in Egypt Regulations 1998 (“the 1998 Regulations”). The Regulations implement Commission Decision 96/301/EC (as amended) authorising member States temporarily to take additional measures against the dissemination of Pseudomonas solanacearum (Smith) Smith (now referred to as Ralstonia solanacearum (Smith) Yabuuchi et al.) as regards Egypt. The Regulations– add Commission Decision 2001/664/EC to the list of instruments amending Commission Decision 96/301/EC (regulation 2(1) and the Schedule); prohibit the import into Scotland of potatoes which the person importing knows or has reasonable cause to suspect originated in Egypt, unless those potatoes are accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate issued in accordance with the requirements of paragraph 1 of the Annex to the Commission Decision 96/301/EEC (regulation 3); require potatoes originating in Egypt to be processed only in plants approved by the Scottish Ministers for that purpose (regulation 4); amend the 1998 Regulations to provide that an inspector, who has reasonable grounds for suspecting that regulation 3(1) or 4(1) of the Regulations has been or is likely to be contravened, may exercise certain enforcement powers conferred by article 22 of the Plant Health (Great Britain) Order 1993 (“the Order”) (regulation 5); provide that any notice served or power exercised under regulation 5 of the Regulations, where the power to do so is conferred by the Order, has the same effect as if served or exercised under the relevant article of the Order (regulation 5(4) and (6)). Accordingly, once a notice is served or other power is exercised under regulation 5 of the Regulations, the relevant consequential provisions of the Order, including provisions as to offences, take effect; permit an inspector to check that the provisions of the Regulations have been complied with by exercising certain powers conferred by article 25 of the Order (regulation 5(5)); set a fee of £37.50, increased in line with inflation from the previous fee of £35.00, where a sample of potatoes is taken for the purpose of ascertaining whether the potatoes are infected with Ralstonia solancearum (Smith) Yabuuchi et al. (regulation 6); and provide that a person who contravenes or fails to comply with regulation 3(1) (imports of potatoes originating in Egypt) or 4(1) (processing other than in an approved plant) of the Regulations is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £5,000 (regulation 7). The Regulations also revoke the Potatoes Originating in Egypt Regulations 1998, together with specified amending instruments, in consequence of their consolidation in these Regulations (regulation 8).

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