UK Offence Report

Offences and penalty provision

regulation 6(1) of The Drinking Milk Regulations 1998

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.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 3 or 4 of these Regulations, he 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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

7 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove– a that the product was intended for export to a country which has legislation analogous to these Regulations and that such product complies with that legislation; and b in the case of export to another Member State, that the legislation complies with the Cou

What would breach regulation 6(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 Drinking Milk Regulations 1998, 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
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 (1998-10-31); 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 Drinking Milk (Scotland) Regulations 2011
Revoked on
1 April 2011
Made
29 September 1998
In force from
31 October 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, which apply to Great Britain, make provision for the enforcement and execution of Council Regulation (EC) No. 2597/97 laying down additional rules on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products for cows' drinking milk (“the Council Regulation”). These Regulations– a prohibit the sale or delivery of milk, or the use of or failure to use a sales description for any product, in contravention of the Council Regulation (regulation 3); b prohibit the importation from outside the European Community of a product for sale as drinking milk in contravention of the Council Regulation (regulation 4); c specify food authorities as enforcement bodies (regulation 5) and create offences and prescribe a penalty (regulation 6); d provide a defence in relation to exports, in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 of Council Directive 89/397/EEC (OJ No. L186, 30.6.89, p.23) on the official control of foodstuffs, as read with the ninth recital to that Directive (regulation 7); e incorporate specified provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (regulation 8); and f revoke the Regulations specified in the Schedule to the extent specified (regulation 9), and make consequential amendments (regulation 10).

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”; 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