UK Offence Report

18 If any person contravenes or fails to comply with any of the provisions of these Regulations he shall be…

regulation 18 of The Meat and Meat Products (Hormonal Substances) Regulations 1989

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

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 to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

1 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the person charged 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 the last foregoing paragraph involves the allegation that the commission of the offence was due to the

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 Meat and Meat Products (Hormonal Substances) Regulations 1989, 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
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1989-12-13); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean an unlimited fine.

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
6 November 1989
In force from
13 December 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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations, which apply only to England and Wales, come into force on 13th December 1989. They implement Article 2(c) and (d) of Council Directive 81/602/EEC (OJ No. L222, 7.8.81, p. 32) concerning the prohibition of certain substances having a hormonal action and of any substances having a thyrostatic action, in part Articles 4, 5 and 6 of Council Directive 85/358/EEC (OJ No. L191, 23.7.85, p. 46) supplementing Directive 81/602/EEC and Article 1 of Council Directive 86/469/EEC (OJ No. L275, 26.9.86, p. 36) concerning the examination of animals and fresh meat for the presence of residues. The Regulations:– a prohibit the sale for human or animal consumption of meat of any animals to which have been administered any hormonal substance except where such substance is an authorised substance and, where the sale is for human consumption, the withdrawal period has elapsed since the administration of the substance and the slaughter of the animal; the sale of meat products prepared from such meat and the use of such meat as an ingredient in the preparation of any meat product are also prohibited (regulation 3); b empower an authorised officer who has reasonable grounds for suspecting that any meat or meat product is material the sale of which is prohibited, to give notice to the person in possession of such meat or meat product prohibiting its sale or use as an ingredient in any meat product for sale for human or animal consumption or its removal except to a place or for a purpose specified in the notice; an authorised officer is also empowered to deal with such meat or meat product in the same way as food suspected of being unfit, in accordance with section 9 of the Food Act 1984 (regulation 4); c empower an authorised officer to take samples and make provision for the primary analysis of samples of any meat or meat product and of any such samples containing the remains of any solid implants, for notification to the owner and the authorised officer of positive findings of a hormonal substance other than an authorised substance or of a quantity of an authorised substance exceeding the maximum level prescribed for that substance, for reference analysis where the owner of the meat or meat product challenges such finding or the authorised officer so decides and notification to the analyst of the name and address of owners of meat or meat products sent for analysis (regulations 5 to 9); d specify the methods of analysis and the requirements in relation to certificates of analysis and provide that no person shall be convicted of an offence under regulation 3 unless the evidence in such proceedings includes a primary or reference analysis certificate (regulations 10 and 11); e require an authorised officer to notify a competent authority in specified circumstances (regulation 12); f make provision for the service of notices and certificates (regulation 13); g make provision for the application of specified provisions of the Food Act as if the Regulations were made under that Act (regulation 14); h make provision for the condemnation of meat or meat products the sale of which is prohibited (regulation 15); i require each local authority to enforce and execute the Regulations within its area (regulation 16); j empower the competent authority, in specified circumstances, to procure sample of meat and meat products for analysis and pending investigations to prohibit the sale or use as an ingredient in food of any meat in a slaughterhouse, to submit the samples for primary or reference analysis and also make provision for the communication of the results of such analysis to the local authority for proceedings to be taken (regulation 17); k make provision for a penalty, offences by corporations, offences due to the fault of another person and a defence of due diligence to proceedings for any offence under the Regulations (regulations 18–21). Article 2(a) of Directive 81/602/EEC, which prohibits the administration of hormonal substances to animals except for specified purposes, has been implemented by the Medicines (Hormone Growth Promoters) (Prohibition of Use) Regulations 1988 (S.I. 1988/705). Article 2(b) of that Directive, which prohibits the sale or slaughter of animals to which hormonal substances have been administered, has been implemented by the Animals and Fresh Meat (Hormonal Substances) Regulations 1988 (S.I. 1988/849).

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