UK Offence Report

Penalties and Enforcement

regulation 17(1) of The Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

1 Any person who contravenes regulations 4 to 16 of these Regulations 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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

1 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it is a defence for the person charged to prove that— a the product was placed on the market or labelled before 24th June 2015; and b the matters constituting the alleged contravention would not have constituted an offence under the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2003 as they stood immediately before 24th Ju

What would breach regulation 17(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 regulations 4 to 16 of these Regulations.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015, 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
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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
Status not determined
Made
21 May 2015
In force from
24 June 2015
Extent
S

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

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 apply in Scotland, implement Council Directive 2001/110/EC relating to honey (OJ No L 10, 12.1.2002, p.47) as amended by European Parliament and Council Directive 2014/631/EU relating to honey (OJ No L 164, 3.6.2014, p.1). They revoke and replace the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2003 (S.S.I. 2003/569) as amended by the Honey (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2005 (S.S.I. 2005/307). The Regulations regulate the labelling of honey, and the use of the names “honey” (regulation 5), “baker’s honey” (regulation 6), “blossom honey” and “nectar honey” (regulation 7), “chunk honey” and “cut comb in honey” (regulation 8), “comb honey” (regulation 9) “drained honey” (regulation 10), “extracted honey” (regulation 11), “filtered honey” (regulation 12), “honeydew honey” (regulation 13) and “pressed honey” (regulation 14). Regulation 15 and the Schedule prescribe compositional criteria with which these products must comply when placed on the market as honey and when used as honey as an ingredient in a compound foodstuff that is placed on the market and intended for human consumption. Regulation 16 prescribes additional labelling requirements for the honey products regulated by these Regulations. Regulation 17 imposes an obligation on food authorities to enforce the Regulations. As well as revoking the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2003, regulation 19 revokes the Honey (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2005 and specified provisions of the Food Information (Scotland) Regulations 2014 (S.S.I. 2014/312) relating to the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2003. Regulation 21 makes a transitional provision in respect of food placed on the market or labelled before 24th June 2015, providing a defence in legal proceedings in relation to such food if it would have been compliant with the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2003, as amended. A full Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment of the effect that this instrument will have on the costs of business, the voluntary sector and the public sector has been prepared and placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Copies may be obtained from Food Standards Scotland, Pilgrim House, Old Ford Road, Aberdeen, AB11 5RL.

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