1 Any person who contravenes or fails to comply with regulation 3, 4(1), 5(1) or 8 shall be guilty of an…

Q: Is regulation 10(1) of The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1998 a strict liability offence?

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.

regulation 10(1) of The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1998

Status not determined
Strict liability
Either way
Food, consumer protection, trading standards, product safety and age-restricted sales

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 Any person who contravenes or fails to comply with regulation 3, 4(1), 5(1) or
8 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

to meet the requisite standards was used, sold or imported it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that the plastic material or article in respect of which the offence is alleged to have been committed was intended for export to a country, other than an EEA State, which has legislation analogous to these Regulations and that the plastic material or article

What would breach regulation 10(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.

On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes or fails to comply with regulation 3, 4(1), 5(1) or 8.
Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1998, whatever the reason for doing it.
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.

Sentencing organisations: fines and the means of a corporate defendant All courts in England and Wales
How a fine on a company is arrived at from its turnover. Relevant far beyond the guidelines that state it, because a very large share of the offences in this corpus can only be committed by an organisation.
Health and safety offences, corporate manslaughter and food safety and hygiene offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 February 2016
Covers breaches of duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the regulations made under it, and food safety and food hygiene offences. Sentencing turns on culpability and on the seriousness and likelihood of harm risked, not only on the harm that happened.
Imposition of community and custodial sentences: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
When a community order or custody is justified at all, and the presumption against short custodial sentences.
Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017
The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.
General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019
The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.
Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

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: 1 June 1998
In force from: 1 July 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

These Regulations, which apply to Great Britain, come into force on 1st July 1998. These Regulations implement— a Council Directive (EEC) 82/711 (OJ No. L297, 23.10.82, p.26), as amended by Commission Directives 93/8/EEC (OJ No. L90, 14.4.93, p.22) and 97/48/EC (OJ No. L222, 12.8.97, p.10), laying down the basic rules necessary for testing migration of the constituents of plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs; b Council Directive (EEC) 85/572 (OJ No. L372, 31.12.85, p.14) laying down the list of simulants to be used for testing migration of constituents of plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs; and c Commission Directive (EEC) 90/128 (OJ No. L75, 21.3.90, p.19, to be read with the corrigendum in OJ No. L349, 13.12.90, p.26), as amended by Commission Directives (EEC) 92/39 (OJ No. L168, 23.6.92, p.21), 93/9 (OJ No. L90, 14.4.93, p.26), 95/3/EEC (OJ No. L41, 23.2.95, p.44) and 96/11/EC (OJ No. L61, 12.3.96, p.26), relating to plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs. These Regulations— a prohibit the use, sale or importation of plastic materials and articles which do not meet specified standards and provide a defence in relation to plastic materials and articles intended for export (regulation 3(1), (2) and (4)); b prohibit the manufacture of plastic materials and articles with any monomer other than one which meets specified requirements and provide a defence in relation to plastic materials and articles manufactured before 1st July 1998 and in accordance with regulation 5 of the Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1992 (regulations 3(3) and 4); c prohibit the use in the manufacture of plastic materials or articles of any specified additive which is not of good technical quality (regulation 5); d provide the methods for testing the capability of plastic materials or articles of transferring constituents to food (regulation 6); e stipulate the overall migration limit for plastic materials and articles (regulation 7); f require, at marketing stages other than retail, persons in possession of any plastic material or article intended to come into contact with food to ensure such material or article is accompanied by a specified declaration (regulation 8); g identify the enforcement authorities (regulation 9); h provide offences and defences and specify penalties (regulation 10); i provide that specified presumptions shall arise from particulars shown in relation to a plastic material or article in accordance with the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1987 (“the 1987 Regulations”) (regulation 11); j apply provisions of the 1987 Regulations and of the Food Safety Act 1990 (regulation 12); and k amend and revoke other legislation (regulations 13 and 14). The materials and articles to which these Regulations relate are also subject to the 1987 Regulations. These Regulations are made under specified provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 and—insofar as they cannot be made under those provisions—section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. The provisions included under the 1972 Act are those which key into provisions of the 1987 Regulations (save where covered by section 48(1)(a) of the 1990 Act) and revocations of regulations made under section 2(2) of the 1972 Act. A regulatory appraisal, which includes a compliance cost assessment, has been placed in the library of each House of Parliament and copies can be obtained from the Additives and Novel Foods Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Ergon House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR.

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

This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1998 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
Food, consumer protection, trading standards, product safety and age-restricted salesOther offences on the same subject
Offences created in 1998