UK Offence Report

Offences, penalties and execution and enforcement

regulation 3(1) of The Foodstuffs Suitable for People Intolerant to Gluten (Scotland) Regulations 2010

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.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 any of the specified provisions 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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.

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes any of the specified provisions.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Foodstuffs Suitable for People Intolerant to Gluten (Scotland) Regulations 2010, 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 Food Information (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2016
Revoked on
20 July 2016
Made
6 October 2010
In force from
1 January 2012
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 provide for the execution and enforcement of Commission Regulation (EC) No.41/2009 concerning the composition and labelling of foodstuffs suitable for people intolerant to gluten (“the Commission Regulation”) as read with Article 10(2) of Directive 2009/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses (O.J. No. L124, 20.5.2009, p.21). That Directive consolidated Council Directive89/398/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses (O.J.No.L186, 30.6.1989, p.27). The Commission Regulation imposes requirements on the composition and labelling of foodstuffs for people intolerant to gluten and other foodstuffs suitable for people intolerant to gluten, in particular as regards the use of the terms “very low gluten” and “gluten-free”. These Regulations— a provide that a person who contravenes specified provisions of the Commission Regulation is guilty of an offence (regulation 3(1)); b provide penalties for offences (regulation 3(2)); c specify the enforcement authority (regulation 3(3)); d provide that these Regulations apply in relation to foodstuffs for people intolerant to gluten that are placed on the retail market irrespective of whether they are in pre-packaged form as provided for in Article 10(2) of Directive 2009/39/EC (regulation 4); and e provide for the application, with modifications, of specified provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 for the purposes of these Regulations (regulation 5). A full Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment, which includes a compliance cost assessment of the effect that these Regulations will have on the costs of business and the voluntary sector, has been prepared 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

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