UK Offence Report

Powers to give directions

article 20(3) of The Specified Bovine Offal Order 1995

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 Any person failing to comply with any direction given under this Order shall be guilty of an offence under the Animal Health Act 1981.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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 20(3)?

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. Being served with a notice under the Specified Bovine Offal Order 1995 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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 Specified Bovine Material Order 1996
Revoked on
29 March 1996
Made
20 July 1995
In force from
15 August 1995
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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This order controls specified bovine offal, being material which may contain the agent containing bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It replaces and extends the current provisions relating to specified bovine offal in the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Order 1991 (S.I. 1995/539), the Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989 (S.I. 1990/2061) and the Bovine Offal (Prohibition) (Scotland) Regulations 1990 (S.I. 1990/112 (S.10)). The Order controls the sale and use of specified bovine offal for human and animal consumption (articles 4 and 5). It regulates the initial treatment of specified bovine offal in a slaughterhouse or elsewhere (articles 6 and 7) and the rendering of whole carcases (article 8), and it provides for exceptions from the staining requirement (article 9). It prohibits the removal of the brain, eyes and spinal cord from a bovine animal, subject to certain exceptions (articles 10 and 11). It regulates the importation of specified bovine offal from Northern Ireland (article 12). The Order regulates the consignment of bovine offal once it has been removed from the carcase (article 13) and controls head boning plants, collection centres, incinerators, rendering plants and premises not connected with food and feedingstuffs by requiring these to be approved and by regulating the way in which they deal with specified bovine offal (articles 14 to 18 and the Schedule). It also regulates veterinary and laboratory premises (article 19). The Order contains provisions on giving directions, export, sampling, transport and storage (articles 20 to 24). It is enforced by the appropriate Minister in relation to premises licensed under the Fresh Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Regulations 1995 and otherwise by the local authority (article 25). The Order revokes and amends various provisions of the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Order 1991. A Compliance Cost Assessment for this Order has been prepared and placed in the library of each House of Parliament. Copies can be obtained from the Animal Health (Disease Control) Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Government Buildings, Hook Rise South, Tolworth, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 7NF.

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