UK Offence Report

Penalties and enforcement

regulation 7(1) of The Meat Products (Scotland) Regulations 2004

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 Any person who contravenes or fails to comply with regulations 4, 5(2) or 6(1) shall be guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

8 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that– a i the act was committed before 4th August 2004; ii the matters constituting the alleged offence would not have constituted an offence under the Meat Products and Spreadable Fish Products (Scotland) Regulations 1984 if those Regulations had been in for

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes or fails to comply with regulations 4, 5(2) or 6(1).
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Meat Products (Scotland) Regulations 2004, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. 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 Products Containing Meat etc. (Scotland) Regulations 2014
Revoked on
13 December 2014
Made
14 January 2004
In force from
4 February 2004
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, revoke and replace the Meat Products and Spreadable Fish Products (Scotland) Regulations 1984 (S.I. 1984/1714, as amended). The Regulations were notified in draft to the European Commission in accordance with Directive 98/34/EC (O.J. No. L 204, 21.7.98, p.37), as amended by Directive 98/48/EC (O.J. No. L 217, 5.8.98, p.18). These Regulations– a define “meat” and “meat product” for the purposes of these Regulations and provide an exception for certain meat products (regulation 2 and Schedule 1); b specify the scope of the Regulations (regulation 3); c restrict the use of reserved descriptions to the meat products to which they relate (regulation 4 and Schedule 2); d prescribe additional labelling requirements for certain meat products (regulation 5); e subject to an exception, prohibit the sale of uncooked meat products which include as ingredients specified parts of the carcase of mammals (regulation 6); f specify a penalty and enforcement authorities (regulation 7); g include a transitional provision relating to offences under the Regulations committed before 4th August 2004 and a defence in relation to exports (regulation 8); h subject to a modification, apply specified provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 for the purposes of the Regulations (regulation 9); i amend the Food Labelling Regulations 1996 (S.I. 1996/1499 as amended) by– i inserting in regulation 2(1) a definition of “meat product”, and ii inserting in regulation 23 a new paragraph 2(c) requiring that the meat content of certain meat products be quantified in the list of ingredients, and provide exceptions in a new Schedule 4A (regulation 10 and Schedule 4); and j provide an exemption from labelling requirements for prescribed additional ingredients (Schedule 3). These Regulations differ from the previous Regulations by– a bringing the meat component of meat products into line with Commission Directive 2001/101/EC (O.J. No. L 310, 28.11.01, p.19) amending Directive 2000/13/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs; and b introducing a new provision requiring the declaration in the name of the food of the presence of any animal proteins which are different from the species of the meat ingredient used and of added water above a specified unit. A regulatory impact assessment has been prepared and placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Copies may be obtained from the Food Standards Agency, 6th Floor, St Magnus House, 25 Guild Street, Aberdeen, AB11 6NJ.

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