UK Offence Report

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

regulation 9(1) of The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1992

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

1 If any person contravenes or fails to comply with any of the provisions of these Regulations 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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

ow. 9 A person satisfies the requirements of this paragraph if he proves— a that the commission of the offence was due to an act or default of another person who was not under his control, or to reliance on information supplied by such a person; b that he carried out all such checks of the plastic material or article in question a

What would breach regulation 9(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 Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1992, 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
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
3 months
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

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
Status not determined
Made
10 December 1992
In force from
1 January 1993
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 implement Commission Directive (EEC) 90/128 (OJ No. L349, 13.12.90, p.26) as amended by Commission Directive (EEC) 92/39 (OJ No. L168, 23.6.92, p.21) relating to plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs, as read with Council Directives (EEC) 82/711 and 85/572 (OJ Nos. L297, 23.10.82, p.26 and L372, 30.12.85, p.14 respectively) which between them lay down the basic rules necessary, and the list of simulants to be used, for testing migration of certain constituents of plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs. The Regulations prescribe limits both in relation to content of the materials and articles in question and migration of constituents into food, and the tests by which migration is to be established. The materials and articles to which these Regulations relate are also subject to the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1987. Plastic materials and articles manufactured before the coming into force of these Regulations containing certain constituents which by these Regulations can no longer be used in manufacture may be used for the purposes of storage etc and may be sold for such purposes until 1st April 1995 (regulation 12).

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