UK Offence Report

Import of class I specified risk material

article 6(4) of The Specified Risk Material Order 1997

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

4 Contravention of, or failure to comply with, any provision of this article shall be an offence to which section 76(3) of the Animal Health Act 1981 applies.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 article 6(4)?

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 Specified Risk Material Order 1997, 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
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
Status not determined
Made
16 December 1997
In force from
1 January 1998
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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order revokes the Specified Bovine Materials Order 1997 and the Heads of Sheep and Goats Order 1996. This Order re-makes with amendments the provisions of those Orders prohibiting the use of specified bovine material in feeding stuffs and cosmetic, pharmaceutical and medical products. The controls on the use of specified bovine material in food, and the provisions relating to the removal of specified bovine material from cattle and its destruction are now contained in the Specified Risk Material Regulations 1997. The Order imposes controls on the import of class I specified risk material (defined in article 2 by reference to the definitions of specified bovine material and specified sheep and goat material set out in articles 3 and 4), and requires imported food and feeding stuffs of the types set out in Schedule 1 to be certified by the veterinary authorities in the place from which they were despatched to the UK as not containing class I specified risk material (article 6). The Order prohibits the use of specified risk material derived from animals slaughtered in the United Kingdom in ingredients for cosmetic, pharmaceutical and medical products (article 7) and prohibits the use of all specified risk material in feeding stuffs for any creature, subject to an exemption for research purposes (article 8). Article 10 of the Order provides for the approval of premises as suitable to process specified risk material in a manufacturing process not producing any food, feeding stuff, cosmetic, pharmaceutical or medical product or any product likely to come into contact with any of them. The Order contains provisions on transport, storage and sampling (articles 11 to 13), and makes provision for the recall and disposal of specified risk material and feeding stuffs containing specified risk material imported, produced or sold in contravention of the Order (articles 14 and 15). Article 16 prohibits the export of specified risk material to other member States, except in accordance with a licence granted by the Minister. Article 17 provides that local authorities are to enforce the Order. The Order amends the Zoonoses Order 1988 (which designated bovine spongiform encephalopathy as a disease which constitutes a risk to public health) so as to apply further provisions of the Animal Health Act 1981 to it (article 18). This Order has been notified in draft to the European Commission as a technical standard, pursuant to article 8 of Council Directive 83/189/EEC (OJ L 109, 26/4/83 p. 8) laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations (as last amended by Directive 94/10/EC OJ L 100, 19/4/94 p. 30). A regulatory 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 (BSE and International Trade) Division, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Government Buildings (Toby Jug), Hook Rise South, 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 0.88.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.88 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