UK Offence Report

2 The occupier of any premises at which any potatoes are made up in a container for sale by weight otherwise…

article 13(2) of The Weights and Measures (Miscellaneous Foods) Order 1988

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

2 The occupier of any premises at which any potatoes are made up in

a container for sale by weight otherwise than by retail, or of any premises (other than

a vehicle or ship) at which such potatoes so made up are so sold, shall provide suitable weighing equipment and make that equipment available for any weighing or weighings required under the foregoing paragraph to be carried out at those premises; and if he without reasonable cause contravenes any of the requirements of this paragraph he shall be guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 article 13(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 Weights and Measures (Miscellaneous Foods) Order 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
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£2,000
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
Status not determined
Made
16 November 1988
In force from
1 January 1989
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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order consolidates and amends the Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Miscellaneous Foods) Order 1984 as amended. The principal changes introduced by this Order are as follows:— a in article 4, to permit the weights of non-retail pre-packed chocolate products weighing 10kg or more to be marked on an accompanying document instead of the packaging, and to permit the weights of non-retail pre-packed solid and paste coffee and chicory products shown in an accompanying document to be in metric units only; b in article 9(1), pre-packed liquid coffee and chicory products in quantities of less than 5ml are exempted from quantity marking; c in article 16(3)(a), to make clear that the prescribed quantities in which bread has to be made up do not also apply to bun loaves, fruit loaves, malt loaves and fruited malt loaves; and d in Schedule 1, to prescribe a new range for tea (other than tea bags), and to exempt from quantity marking all pre-packed foods in quantities of less than 5g or 5ml previously required to be quantity marked below those values.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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