UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 20(1) of The Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1995

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.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, or fails to comply with, regulation 5 or any of the relevant Community provisions referred to in column 1 or 2 of Parts I, II, III, V or IX of Schedule 2, he shall be guilty of an offence and liable— a on summary conviction in Great Britain to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or on such conviction in Northern Ireland to a fine not exceeding £2,000; or b on conviction on indictment, to a fine.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 20(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 Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1995, 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
£2,500
Standard scale
Level 4
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

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 Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1996
Revoked on
1 April 1996
Made
7 March 1995
In force from
1 April 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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations, which apply throughout the United Kingdom and come into force on 1st April 1995, provide for the enforcement of EC Regulations (as specified in Schedules 1 and 2) concerned with the production and marketing of wine and related products. They revoke and re–enact with amendments the provisions of the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1994 (S.I. 1994/674). The Regulations— i designate competent authorities, agencies and a liaison authority for the purposes of enforcement (regulation 3); ii define “medium dry” for the purposes of labelling and description (regulation 4); iii specify conditions for the use of geographical ascriptions for the designation of table wine (regulation 5); iv exempt certain products from provisions relating to information required on labels (regulation 6); v permit the planting for certain purposes of vine varieties whose planting would otherwise be prohibited (regulation 7); vi provide for powers of inspection and enforcement (regulation 8); vii authorise controls on the movement of wine sector products (regulations 9 and 10); viii relieve authorised officers of personal liability for acts done by them in execution of the Regulations (regulation 11); ix confer on courts before which proceedings are brought powers in relation to the analysis and examination of samples (regulation 12); x specify the regions in the United Kingdom for producing quality wines psr (regulation 14); xi specify the list of vine varieties, minimum natural alcoholic strength, maximum yield per hectare and analytical test in the production of quality wine psr and permit the production of such wine in areas of immediate proximity to the specified regions (regulations 15 to 19); and xii prescribe offences and penalties and provide defences (regulations 20 to 24). The Schedules have been revised and brought up to date so as to include references to any secondary legislation of the European Community which has been adopted or identified as requiring inclusion since the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) Regulations 1994 came into force and to delete references to any such secondary legislation which has been repealed or superseded or has become redundant; in addition, the definition of “Community provision” in regulation 2(1) has been extended to cover adaptations effected by the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Subject to that, and to minor drafting changes, the format of these Regulations follows that used in the revoked 1994 Regulations, save that changes are made in regulation 19 and Schedule 6 so as to distinguish between factors to be measured and standards to be met in the case of the analytical test for quality wines psr, and in regulation 3(1) so as to limit the functions of agencies to those relating to the wine sector, in parallel to the limit on the functions of competent authorities resulting from the combination of regulation 2(2) and Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2048/89 (OJ No. L202, 14.7.89, p.32). In Schedule 1 each Regulation is given the title which appears in the Official Journal except in cases where the title refers to a Regulation that has been repealed or superseded. In such a case the title given in Schedule 1 refers to the superseding Regulation and the title in the Official Journal is given in a footnote. In addition, footnotes to Schedule 1 identify provisions within it which are subject to adaptations effected by the Agreement on the European Economic Area. A Compliance Cost Assessment has been prepared and has been deposited in the library of each House of Parliament.

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