UK Offence Report

9 Any person who contravenes regulations 3, 4, 6 or 7 shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on…

regulation 9 of The Medicines (Sale or Supply) (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 1980

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

9 Any person who contravenes regulations 3, 4, 6 or 7 shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £400.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 9?

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 3, 4, 6 or 7.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Medicines (Sale or Supply) (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 1980, 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
£400
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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
8 December 1980
In force from
30 January 1981
Extent
Not stated

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 consolidate, with amendments, the provisions of the Medicines (Sale or Supply) (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 1977 and its amending instruments, which are revoked. They also supersede the Medicines (General Sale List) Order 1977 (S.I. 1977/2129) to the extent that that order imposed limits on the pack size of medicinal products on a general sale list. The provisions consolidated relate to the following matters:— requirements as to the safekeeping of certain veterinary drugs, the location of automatic machines for the sale of medicinal products, and the keeping of records by persons lawfully conducting a retail pharmacy business and by certain sellers of veterinary drugs; restrictions as to the classes of persons to whom there may be sold prescription only medicines and pharmacy medicines, and exemptions from those restrictions; and enforcement by local authorities and the Pharmaceutical Society of sections 53 and 54 of the Medicines Act 1968 (sale of medicinal products on a general sale list and from automatic machines) and enforcement of regulations under section 66 of that Act relating to dealings with medicinal products. The principal changes made by these regulations in relation to those matters are the removal of a provision whereby certain prescription only medicines could be sold to state registered physiotherapists by way of wholesale dealing, and the inclusion of an exemption from the requirement that a person lawfully conducting a retail pharmacy business keep certain records of sales and supplies of prescription only medicines, when the sale or supply is for the purposes of a drug testing scheme, or in response to certain orders from doctors under National Health Service arrangements in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Under section 53 of the Medicines Act 1968, medicinal products on a general sale list may be sold or supplied by retail elsewhere than at a registered pharmacy only if certain conditions are fulfilled. These regulations prescribe conditions relating to the quantity of certain such products (both those for human use and veterinary drugs) that may be sold or supplied by retail in any one container or package. The limits imposed are similar to those which subsisted under the Medicines (General Sale List) Order 1977. Regulation 9 makes it an offence to contravene regulations 3, 4, 6 or 7 of these regulations. A person who contravenes regulation 5 will be guilty of an offence under section 67(2) of the Medicines Act 1968 and a person who contravenes regulation 8 will thereby contravene section 53 of that Act and be guilty of an offence under section 67(5).

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”; the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
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