UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 3(1) of The Contaminants in Food (Scotland) Regulations 2006

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 Subject to the transitional arrangements contained in the Community provisions specified in paragraph (2),

a person is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale if that person–

a places on the market any food (other than authorised lettuce or authorised spinach) which is covered by, but fails to meet the requirements of, Article 1.1 of the Commission Regulation, as read with Articles 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 4.1 and 4.3 of that Regulation; or

b contravenes Article 2.3, 4.2 or 4a of the Commission Regulation.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
selling or supplying something the instrument restricts
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; other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

What would breach regulation 3(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. Selling the goods under the Contaminants in Food (Scotland) Regulations 2006 where the instrument prohibits the sale outright.
  2. Supplying without carrying out a check the instrument requires first, even where the sale would otherwise be lawful.
  3. Offering for sale counts as well as selling: displaying stock is enough where the provision reaches an offer.

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 Contaminants in Food (Scotland) Regulations 2007
Revoked on
1 March 2007
Made
7 June 2006
In force from
1 July 2006
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 re-enact with changes the Contaminants in Food (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (S.S.I. 2005/606). They make provision for the execution and enforcement of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 466/2001 setting maximum levels for contaminants in foodstuffs (O.J. No. L 77, 16.3.2001, p.1, as corrected and amended) (“the Commission Regulation”). Recent amendments to the Commission Regulation– introduced maximum permitted levels and other controls relating to certain Fusarium toxins (Commission Regulation (EC) No. 856/2005, O.J. No. L 143, 7.6.05, p.3); and introduced new or amended controls relating to dioxins and the sum of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs (Commission Regulation (EC) No. 199/2006, O.J. No. L 32, 4.2.06, p.34). The Regulations– provide that it is an offence (except in certain cases relating to food placed on the market before a date given in specified Community legislation)– to place on the market certain foods if they contain contaminants of any kind specified in the Commission Regulation at levels exceeding those specified (subject to a derogation applicable to certain types of lettuce and to fresh spinach); to use food containing such contaminants at such levels as ingredients in the production of certain foods; to mix foods that do not comply with the maximum levels referred to above with foods which do comply; to mix foods to which the Commission Regulation relates and which are intended for direct consumption with foods to which the Commission Regulation relates and which are intended to be sorted or otherwise treated prior to consumption; or to detoxify by chemical treatment food not complying with the limits specified in the Commission Regulation (regulation 3); specify the enforcement authorities (regulation 4); provide for the application of specified provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 for the purposes of these Regulations (regulation 5); and make a consequential amendment to the Food Safety (Sampling and Qualifications) Regulations 1990 (regulation 6), the effect being to disapply the sampling and analysis provisions of those Regulations only to the extent that those matters are regulated by the Community instruments mentioned in paragraph 3(a) to (f) below. The Commission Regulation specifies the Community methods of sampling and analysis that are required to be used for the official control of levels of the substances covered by it. Those methods are set out in– Commission Directive 2001/22/EC laying down the sampling methods and the methods of analysis for the official control of the levels of lead, cadmium, mercury and 3-MCPD in foodstuffs (O.J. No. L 77, 16.3.01, p.14), as corrected by Commission Decision 2001/873/EC (O.J. No. L 325, 8.12.01, p.34) and as amended by Commission Directive 2005/4/EC (O.J. No. L 19, 21.1.05, p.50); Commission Directive 2002/63/EC establishing Community methods of sampling for the official control of pesticide residues in and on products of plant and animal origin (O.J. No. L 187, 16.7.02, p.30); Commission Directive 2002/69/EC laying down the sampling methods and the methods of analysis for the official control of dioxins and the determination of dioxin-like PCBs in foodstuffs (O.J. No. L 209, 6.8.02, p.5), as corrected by a corrigendum published on 20th September 2002 (O.J. No. L 252, 20.9.02, p.40) and as amended by Commission Directive 2004/44/EC (O.J. No. L 113, 20.4.04, p.17); Commission Directive 2004/16/EC laying down the sampling methods and the methods of analysis for the official control of the levels of tin in canned foods (O.J. No. L 42, 13.2.04, p.16); Commission Directive 2005/10/EC laying down the sampling methods and the methods of analysis for the official control of the levels of benzo(a)pyrene in foodstuffs (O.J. No. L 34, 8.2.05, p.15); and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 401/2006 laying down the methods of sampling and analysis for the official control of the levels of mycotoxins in foodstuffs (O.J. No. L 70, 9.3.06, p.12). This Regulation repeals the sampling and analysis Directives 98/53/EC, 2002/26/EC, 2003/78/EC and 2005/38/EC and stipulates that any reference to those Directives in the Commission Regulation is to be read as a reference to Commissi on Regulation (EC) 401/2006. A full regulatory impact assessment, which includes a compliance cost assessment of the effect which these Regulations will have on business costs, has been prepared for these Regulations and placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Copies may be obtained from the Food Standards Agency (Scotland), 6th Floor, St Magnus House, 25 Guild Street, Aberdeen AB11 6NJ.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same 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