UK Offence Report

Amendment of the Imported Food and Feedingstuffs (Safeguards against Cholera) Regulations 1991

regulation 2(6) of The Imported Food and Feedingstuffs (Safeguards against Cholera) (Amendment) Regulations 1991

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

6 For regulation

6 there shall be substituted the following— Offences 6

1 Any person who contravenes regulation 2(1) or (2), 3(1) or 5(1) shall be guilty of an offence, triable only summarily, and liable on conviction to imprisonment for

a period not exceeding three months, or to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale, or to 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
importing or exporting without authority
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(6)?

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes regulation 2(1) or (2), 3(1) or 5(1).
  2. Moving the goods across the border under the Imported Food and Feedingstuffs (Safeguards against Cholera) (Amendment) Regulations 1991 without the licence the instrument requires.
  3. Holding a licence for one consignment and using it for another.
  4. Sending goods in transit through the United Kingdom, where the provision catches transit as well as import and export.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
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 (1992-01-29); 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
23 December 1991
In force from
29 January 1992
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 provide for the enforcement and execution in Great Britain of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3185/91 made by the Council of the European Communities adopting protective measures for the import of fruit and vegetables from certain countries affected by cholera (OJ No L 303, pp 1—5, 1.11.91). Article 1 of that Regulation specifies the fruit and vegetables to which it applies. The Regulations also amend the provisions contained in the Imported Food and Feedingstuffs (Safeguards against Cholera) Regulations 1991 relating to the re-export of fish from Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, thereby giving effect to the Decision 91/541/EEC of the Commission of 15 October 1991 (OJ No L 294, p51, 25.10.91) amending Decisions 91/146/EEC concerning protective measures against cholera in Peru (OJ No L 73, p34, 20.3.91), 91/281/EEC concerning importations of fishery and aquaculture products from Ecuador (OJ No L 142, p43, 6.6.91) and 91/282/EEC concerning importations of fishery and aquaculture products from Colombia (OJ No L 142, p44, 6.6.91). They also make amendments to those regulations consequential upon both the Decision and the Council Regulation, and make it an offence to import into Great Britain, or export from Great Britain to another member State of the European Economic Community, fruit, vegetables and fruit and vegetable products to which the Council Regulation applies, except in compliance with its requirements as to certification and inspection. Certain presumptions, contained in the Food Safety Act 1990, which are applied by the principal Regulations to certificates given by proper authorities in the affected countries in relation to food, are extended so as to apply also to certificates about feedingstuffs (Regulation 2).

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