UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 18 of The Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1987

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

18 If any person contravenes or fails to comply with any of the provisions of these Regulations, he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction in the case of regulation 15 to a fine not exceeding £1,000 and in any other case to a fine not exceeding £2,000.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
Mixed — some elements strict, some not
Burden of proof
Legal burden on the defendant

The prosecution must prove the conduct, and - for those elements the provision qualifies (intentionally) - the state of mind it names. The remaining elements carry no fault requirement, so they are strict.

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: the offence itself carries no fault word, but a duty it criminalises by cross-reference uses intentionally; which element that governs was not determined.

The defence, as drafted

1 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the person charged, or in Scotland the accused, to prove that he took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of such an offence. 2 If in any case the defence provided by paragraph (1) above involves the allegation that the commission of the offence was due to the act or d

What would breach regulation 18?

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. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1987, whatever the reason for doing it.
  2. 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
£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.

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 Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Wales) Regulations 2005
Revoked on
24 June 2005
Made
20 August 1987
In force from
2 October 1987
Extent
Not stated

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, which apply to England, Scotland and Wales come into force on 2nd October 1987. They re-enact the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1978, as amended. The principal change effected by the Regulations is the implementation of Council Directive No. 83/229/EEC (O.J. No. L123, 11.5.83, p. 31) on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to materials and articles made of regenerated cellulose film intended to come into contact with foodstuffs, as amended by Commission Directive No. 86/388/EEC (O.J. No. L228, 14.8.86, p. 32). The Regulations apply to materials and articles which are in their finished state and are intended to come into contact with food or which are in contact with food and are intended for that purpose and forbid the sale, importation or commercial use of materials and articles which fail to comply with the Regulations. They require that materials and articles shall not, under normal or foreseeable conditions of use, transfer their constituents to food in quantities which could endanger human health or bring about an unacceptable change in the nature, substance or quality of the food (regulation 4). For materials and articles manufactured with vinyl chloride polymers or co-polymers, limits are prescribed to the quantity of vinyl chloride monomer which they may contain and to the quantity of vinyl chloride which they may transfer to food (regulation 5). For materials and articles made of regenerated cellulose film, the substances from which they may be manufactured are prescribed together with conditions and restrictions on use (regulation 6 and Schedule 1). The Regulations also— a specify requirements for the labelling of materials and articles sold by retail and otherwise than by retail (regulations 7 and 8 respectively and Schedule 2); b restrict to materials and articles which comply with the Regulations, descriptions and symbols indicating suitability for use with food (regulation 9 and Schedule 2); c apply regulations 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 to materials and articles offered as prizes (regulation 10); d with minor clarifications in respect of Scotland, make provision for administration and enforcement of the Regulations and for legal proceedings (regulations 11—24).

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