UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 11(2) of The Pig Carcase (Grading) Regulations 1988

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 If any person without reasonable excuse contravenes, or fails to comply with, any provision of regulations

5 or 6(2) he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding £1000.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

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.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

2 If any person without reasonable excuse contravenes, or fails to comply with, any provision of regulations 5 or 6(2) he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £1000.

What would breach regulation 11(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 Pig Carcase (Grading) Regulations 1988, 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)
3 months
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

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 Pig Carcase (Grading) Regulations 1994
Revoked on
12 September 1994
Made
7 July 1988
In force from
5 August 1988
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 Great Britain only, provide for the administration and enforcement of the Community system of grading of pig carcases in slaughterhouses of which the weekly average throughput exceeds 200 pigs. That system, which requires pig carcases to be graded after slaughter in accordance with common rules by reference to the proportion which their lean meat content bears to their total weight, was established by Council Regulation (EEC) No 3220/84 (OJ No L301, 20.11.84, p.1) (“the Council Regulation”), for which detailed rules are laid down by Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2967/85 (OJ No L285, 25.10.85, p.39) (“the Commission Regulation”). Those Community Regulations provide, inter alia, for— a the definition of the term “pig carcase” (Article 2 of the Council Regulation); b the principles by reference to which the lean meat content of a pig carcase is to be assessed (Article 2 of the Council Regulation and Article 3 of the Commission Regulation); c the methods by means of which the weight of a cold pig carcase is to be calculated (Article 2 of the Commission Regulation); d the scale of grades which is to be applied in respect of each pig carcase (Article 3 of the Council Regulation); and e the marking of pig carcases after grading (Article 4 of the Council Regulation and Article 4 of the Commission Regulation). In implementation of those provisions, these Regulations— a add to the grading scale which applies by virtue of Article 3(2) of the Council Regulation an additional grade indicating a minimum lean meat content of 60% designated by the letter “S” (regulation 4); b require occupiers of slaughterhouses to which these Regulations apply— i to give the appropriate Agriculture Minister certain particulars of his business (regulation 3); ii to weigh and grade pig carcases in accordance with the requirements of the Council Regulation as read with Commission Decision No 88/234/EEC (OJ No L105, 26.4.88, p.15) (which authorises the use of specified methods for grading pig carcases and the calculation of the weight of cold pig carcases by reference to a specified scale of absolute reductions of the hot weight) (regulation 5(a) and (b)); iii to mark any carcase to be exported uncut to another Member State with an indication of its grade in accordance with the requirements of the Community Regulations (regulation 5(c)); and iv to mark any other carcase in accordance with the requirements of the Community Regulations or to make and keep a record relating to it (regulation 5(d)); c require the MLC to carry out the weighing and grading duties on behalf of a slaughterhouse occupier, if given notice by him (regulation 6); d confer on authorised officers of the Agriculture Ministers powers of entry and inspection for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the Regulations (regulation 7); e enable the MLC to recover from slaughterhouse occupiers its expenses incurred in connection with carrying out the weighing and grading duties (regulation 9); f provide for the service of notices (regulation 10); and g create offences and penalties, and provide for defences (regulation 11).

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