UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 6(2) of The Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1987

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 If any person— a contravenes or fails to comply with any of the relevant Community provisions referred to in Columns 1 or 2 of Parts IV, VI or VII of Schedule 2 to these Regulations, or b discloses to any other person any information obtained by him in pursuance of his duties under these Regulations, unless the disclosure is made in, or for the purposes of, the performance by him or any other person of any functions under these Regulations, or in pursuance of a Community obligation, he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £1,000.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

against any person for an offence under these Regulations, it shall be a defence for that person to prove that he took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence. 4 Where an offence under these Regulations which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of

What would breach regulation 6(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.

  1. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) 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
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.

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 Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1990
Revoked on
6 August 1990
Made
18 October 1987
In force from
20 November 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 throughout the United Kingdom and come into force on 20th November 1987, provide for the enforcement of EEC regulations (as specified in Schedules 1 and 2) concerned with the production and marketing of wine and related products. The Regulations, which revoke and re-enact with amendments the provisions of the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1982 and the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) (Amendment) Regulations 1983— a designate competent authorities for the purposes of enforcement (regulation 3); b exempt certain products from provisions relating to information required on labels (regulation 4); c provide for an exemption permitting the planting for certain purposes of vine varieties whose planting would otherwise be prohibited (regulation 5); d prescribe offences and penalties (regulation 6). The Regulations differ from the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1982, as amended by the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) (Amendment) Regulations 1983 in that— a an exemption has been provided for permitting the planting for certain purposes of otherwise prohibited vine varieties (regulation 5); b the penalties for offences have been increased (regulation 6); c offences contrary to Part V of Schedule 2, relating to wine making processes, have been added to the offences contrary to Parts I, II and III of that Schedule which are punishable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £2,000 and on conviction on indictment to a fine (regulation 6(1)); d an exception in the case of disclosure in pursuance of a Community obligation has been included in the provision creating the offence of disclosure of information (regulation 6(2)(b)); e a provision has been added which deems various officers of a body corporate to be guilty in certain circumstances of an offence committed by that body corporate (regulation 6(4)); f the Schedules have been revised and brought up to date so as to include references to relevant Regulations of the European Communities which have been adopted since the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) (Amendment) Regulations 1983 came into force and to delete references to Regulations which have been repealed or superseded or have become redundant. In Schedule 1 each Regulation is given the title which appears in the Official Journal, except in cases where the title refers to a Regulation that has been repealed or superseded. In such a case the title given in Schedule 1 refers to the superseding Regulation and the title in the Official Journal is given in a footnote.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same 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