UK Offence Report

Information

regulation 4(2) of The Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) (Charges) Regulations 1998

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 Any person who—

a in purported compliance with paragraph (1) above, knowingly or recklessly furnishes information which is false or misleading in

a material particular; or

b without reasonable excuse, fails to comply within

a reasonable time with

a demand made under the said paragraph (1), shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
making a false or misleading statement
Fault element
Requires proof of a state of mind
Burden of proof
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (knowingly, knowingly or recklessly, recklessly).

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: knowingly, recklessly, knowingly or recklessly; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

which is false or misleading in a material particular; or b without reasonable excuse, fails to comply within a reasonable time with a demand made under the said paragraph (1), shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

What would breach regulation 4(2)?

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. Entering a figure on a form or return that is known to be wrong under the Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) (Charges) Regulations 1998.
  2. Leaving out something the form asks for, where the omission is what makes the answer misleading.
  3. Producing a document to an official that has been altered since it was issued.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1998-09-28); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean an unlimited fine.

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 Meat (Official Controls) (Charges) (Wales) Regulations 2005
Revoked on
1 January 2006
Made
23 August 1998
In force from
28 September 1998
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 implement in Great Britain the provisions relating to charges for meat hygiene inspections of Council Directive 85/73/EEC on the financing of veterinary inspections and controls covered by Directives 89/662/EEC, 90/425/EEC, 90/675/EEC and 91/496/EEC of which an amended and consolidated text is annexed to Council Directive 96/43/EC (OJ No. L162, 1.7.96, p.1). In pursuance of Article 4 of Council Directive 85/73/EEC, they also provide for a charge to be levied in relation to hygiene inspection at slaughter of other land mammals and birds for which no standard charge is specified. The charges encompass any monitoring of the welfare of animals slaughtered for human consumption in slaughterhouses carried out under the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995 (S.I. 1995/731). The Regulations require the Minister to notify the occupiers of slaughterhouses, cutting premises and cold stores (as defined in regulation 2) of the inspection charge (calculated in accordance with the Schedule) in relation to inspections carried out there as soon as possible after the end of each accounting period, and provide that any charge so notified is payable by the occupier concerned to the Minister and is recoverable on demand as a debt (regulation 3). The Schedule to the Regulations sets out how the inspection charge is to be calculated. It requires the Minister to determine hourly rates for use in the calculation of the charge, after consultation with such occupiers as are likely to be affected by the rates. The Regulations require the Minister to be supplied on demand with such information as he may reasonably require to calculate the inspection charge, and with such further information as he requires to verify that information. Knowingly or recklessly supplying information which is false or misleading in a material particular is an offence, as is failure to supply the information required within a reasonable time and without reasonable excuse (regulation 4). The Regulations revoke the Meat (Hygiene, Inspection and Examinations for Residues) (Charges) Regulations 1995 (S.I. 1995/361) (regulation 5). A regulatory appraisal has been prepared and placed in the library of each House of Parliament. Copies of that appraisal can be obtained from the Meat Hygiene 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

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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”; the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
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