UK Offence Report

Enforcement of marketing and labelling requirements

regulation 5(4) of The Beef and Veal Labelling (Scotland) Regulations 2008

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

4 Any person who fails to comply with

a notice under paragraph (2) is 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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

In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations, it is a defence for the person charged (in this Regulation, “the person”) to prove that all due diligence was exercised to avoid the commission of the offence. 2 Paragraph (3) applies if the defence provided by paragraph (1) above involves the allegation that the commission of the offence was due to the act or omission of another person (in

What would breach regulation 5(4)?

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 fails to comply with a notice under paragraph (2).
  2. Being served with a notice under the Beef and Veal Labelling (Scotland) Regulations 2008 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
6 months

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 Beef and Veal Labelling (Scotland) Regulations 2010
Revoked on
11 December 2010
Made
16 December 2008
In force from
25 January 2009
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 replace the Beef Labelling (Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 2001 (S.S.I. 2001/252) with Regulations setting out requirements for the labelling of veal as well as beef. They continue to enforce Title II of Regulation (EC) No. 1760/2000 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products and subsidiary Commission Regulations. They also enforce the provisions relating to veal of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1234/2007 establishing a common organisation of agricultural markets and on specific provisions for certain agricultural products as well as the provisions of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 566/2008 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1234/2007 as regards the marketing of the meat of bovine animals aged 12 months or less. The Scottish Ministers enforce these Regulations in slaughterhouses, cutting plants and wholesalers, the relevant local authority enforces these Regulations in all other places (regulation 4(2)). It is an offence: for persons engaged in the marketing of beef or veal to fail to comply with the applicable requirements of the compulsory and voluntary beef or veal labelling schemes in Schedule 1 to the Regulations (regulation 5(1)); or to fail to comply with the requirements of a notice served by an authorised officer requiring the removal from sale of beef or veal which has been wrongly labelled or marketed (regulation 5(4)). Both offences are punishable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, currently £5,000 (regulation 9(2)). The Regulations confer powers of entry, inspection, sampling and enforcement on authorised officers (regulations 6(2) and Schedule 2) and make provision for the protection of officers acting in good faith (Schedule 2, paragraph 3). It is an offence to obstruct an authorised officer acting in the execution of the Regulations (Schedule 2, paragraph 4), punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or imprisonment for up to six months (regulation 9(2)). Regulation 7 makes provision for offences by bodies corporate. Regulation 8 provides for a defence of due diligence (regulation 8). A Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) was prepared in respect of these Regulations. Copies of the RIA can be obtained from the Scottish Government Rural Directorate, Pentland House, 47 Robb’s Loan, Edinburgh, EH14 1TY. Copies have been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

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