UK Offence Report

Offences, penalties and enforcement

regulation 2(1) of The Milk and Milk Products (Protection of Designations) (Scotland) Regulations 1990

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 If any person contravenes article

3 of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1898/87 of 2nd July 1987 on the protection of designations used in marketing of milk and milk products, he shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable–

a on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum; or

b on conviction on indictment to

a fine or to imprisonment for

a term not exceeding one year, or both.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 regulation 2(1)?

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 Milk and Milk Products (Protection of Designations) (Scotland) Regulations 1990, 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
£2,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment)
1 year

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

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 Spreadable Fats, Milk and Milk Products (Scotland) Regulations 2008
Revoked on
1 July 2008
Made
27 March 1990
In force from
2 May 1990
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 Scotland only, and come into force on 2nd May 1990, provide for the enforcement of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1898/87 on the protection of designations used in the marketing of milk and milk products. The Council Regulation provides, inter alia, for– a the definition of the terms “milk” and “milk products” and the reservation of certain designations (cream, butter, etc) to the latter (article 2 of the Annex to the Council Regulation); b a prohibition on the use of those designations for any product other than those referred to in Article 2, save in respect of products the exact nature of which is clear from traditional usage and/or when the designations are clearly used to describe a characteristic quality of the product (article 3.1 of the Council Regulation); and c a prohibition, in respect of any product other than those described in Article 2, on the use of any label etc., advertising, or presentation which claims, implies or suggests that the product is a dairy product (article 3.2 of the Council Regulation). These Regulations– a prescribe offences and penalties in respect of article 3 of the Council Regulation (regulation 2(1)); b designate enforcement authorities (regulation 2(2)); c provide a defence for advertisers acting in the ordinary course of business (regulation 3); and d introduce consequential amendments (including repeals and revocations) to the Food and Drugs (Scotland) Act 1956 and certain other regulations made under that Act (regulations 5 and 6, and the Schedule) and e make ancillary provisions (regulation 4).

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