Restrictions on use of butter

Q: Is regulation 2(2) of The Butter Subsidy (Protection of Community Arrangements) Regulations 1984 a strict liability offence?

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.

regulation 2(2) of The Butter Subsidy (Protection of Community Arrangements) Regulations 1984

Revoked
Strict liability
Either way
Agriculture, plant health, food production and rural affairs

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 A person who contravenes any provision of paragraph (1) above shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £1,000 or on conviction on indictment to a fine.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 2(2)?

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.

On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes any provision of paragraph (1) above.
Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Butter Subsidy (Protection of Community Arrangements) Regulations 1984, whatever the reason for doing it.
Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial: Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine: £1,000
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.

Animal cruelty: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 July 2017
Covers cruelty to and neglect of animals, and the associated disqualification and deprivation orders.
Health and safety offences, corporate manslaughter and food safety and hygiene offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 February 2016
Covers breaches of duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the regulations made under it, and food safety and food hygiene offences. Sentencing turns on culpability and on the seriousness and likelihood of harm risked, not only on the harm that happened.
Imposition of community and custodial sentences: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
When a community order or custody is justified at all, and the presumption against short custodial sentences.
Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017
The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.
General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019
The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.
Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

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 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Miscellaneous Amendments and Revocations) Regulations 2018
Made: 5 November 1984
In force from: 28 November 1984
Extent: Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

These regulations replace with amendments and extend, provisions previously made, and now revoked, for the purpose of implementing Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1269/79 as amended by Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1362/80, Council Regulation (EEC) No. 854/81, Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1186/82, Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1208/83 and Council Regulation (EEC) No. 862/84 on the marketing of reduced-price butter of Community origin for direct consumption. The regulations apply not only to Community butter but to New Zealand butter imported into the United Kingdom pursuant to Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3667/83, as amended by Council Regulation (EEC) No. 551/84, Council Regulation (EEC) No. 864/84, Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1384/84 and Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2007/84. The regulations— (a) prohibit the use for manufacture of all subsidized butter (regulation 2); (b) make provision for the recovery of subsidy paid on all subsidized butter exported from the United Kingdom or used for manufacture (regulation 3); (c) require records to be kept and information to be furnished about exports of subsidized butter (regulation 4). Certain trade in New Zealand butter is prohibited by virtue of Article 6 of Regulation 3667/83. Penalties for exportation in contravention of a prohibition are governed by section 68 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 (c. 2).

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

Records and notification of exportationregulation 4(2)

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

This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
The Butter Subsidy (Protection of Community Arrangements) Regulations 1984 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
Agriculture, plant health, food production and rural affairsOther offences on the same subject
Offences created in 1984