UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Food Safety (Fishery Products and Live Shellfish) (Hygiene) Amendment (No. 2)…

the instrument as a whole of The Food Safety (Fishery Products and Live Shellfish) (Hygiene) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1999

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

Contravening this instrument is an offence under sections 10(2), 33 and 35 of the Food Safety Act 1990. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Not determined

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.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

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 what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Food Safety (Fishery Products and Live Shellfish) (Hygiene) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1999.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to sections 10(2), 33 and 35 of the Food Safety Act 1990.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

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
4 June 1999
In force from
30 June 1999
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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations further amend the Food Safety (Fishery Products and Live Shellfish) (Hygiene) Regulations 1998 (the principal Regulations) to give effect to the provisions of Council Directive 96/43/EC which relate to the financing of hygiene inspections of fishery products. Regulation 9 makes a technical amendment to the Food Safety (Fishery Products and Live Shellfish) (Hygiene) Amendment Regulations 1999 which relates to the introduction of standard registration documents for the movement of live shellfish. Regulation 6 substitutes a new Part for Part V of the principal Regulations and regulation 47 of the new Part gives effect to Schedule 4A. Regulation 8 and the Schedule to these Regulations insert Schedule 4A in the principal Regulations. Part I of the Schedule contains definitions and other general provisions. Part II of the Schedule makes provision for food authorities to recover a contribution towards the costs of carrying out inspections required under Chapter V of Schedule 3 to the principal Regulations in respect of fishery products landed from a vessel of a member State, an EEA State or Greenland (paragraph 2). It also makes provision for additional charges in relation to fishery products landed from factory ships (paragraph 5), the inspection of factory ships abroad (paragraph 9), fishery products entering preparation or processing establishments (paragraph 10) and fishery products entering other establishments in which fishery products are only chilled, frozen, packaged or stored (paragraph 14). The charges payable under Part II are new. Under Part II the level of the contribution is: euro 1 per tonne in respect of the first 50 tonnes of fishery products landed and euro 0.5 per tonne thereafter; an additional euro 1 per tonne for fishery products landed from factory ships; euro 1 per tonne for fishery products entering preparation or processing establishments; the actual costs of inspecting other establishments and the actual costs of inspecting factory ships which are abroad. Some of the charges may be reduced by 55% in certain circumstances (paragraphs 3, 7 and 12). An appeal to the magistrates' court (or in Scotland the sheriff) lies against the amount of the charges (paragraph 7 of Part I). Part III of the Schedule contains similar provisions which enable food authorities to recover a contribution towards the costs of carrying out inspections required under Chapter V of Schedule 3 to the principal Regulations in respect of fishery products directly landed from a fishing vessel of any other country (paragraph 2). Part III provides for charges which have been payable under Part V of the principal Regulations. In addition, these Regulations make minor amendments, including those to provisions which relate to direct transfers of live shellfish and fishery products on local markets (regulations 3 and 5), persons responsible for auction and wholesale markets (regulation 4) and the hygiene conditions in fishery products establishments and markets on land (regulation 7). A Regulatory Impact Assessment has been prepared and copies may be obtained from the Department of Health, Room 501A, Skipton House, 80 London Road, London SE1 6LW, or the Scottish Office Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries Department, Room 358, Pentland House, 47 Robb’s Loan, Edinburgh EH14 1TW. A copy has also been placed in the library of each of the Houses of Parliament.

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 0.63.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.63 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